Unsettled Minds and the Stories that Make Us
A subtle and penetrating investigation into how mental illness is diagnosed ... Aviv is an instinctive storyteller... meticulous, empathic, tirelessly inquisitive. -- Hephzibah Anderson * Observer * So attuned to subtlety and complexity... a book-length demonstration of Aviv's extraordinary ability to hold space for the "uncertainty, mysteries and doubt" of others. * New York Times Book Review * Profoundly intelligent ... superbly written portraits ... [A] remarkable book. * Guardian * Captures with subtlety and empathy the honest reality of mental illness... a human chronicle that is intimate and unpredictable... Instead of demonizing disorders of the mind, Aviv seeks to understand their causes. * The Times * An incredibly researched, empathetic, and moving book. * Lit Hub *
Rachel Aviv is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she writes about medicine, education, criminal justice, and other subjects. In 2022, she won a National Magazine Award for Profile Writing. A 2019 national fellow at New America, she received a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant to support her work on Strangers to Ourselves. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.