A Stitch of Time: The Year a Brain Injury Changed My Language and Life

by Lauren Marks Narrated by Tavia Gilbert

Overview

Lauren Marks was twenty-seven when an aneurysm ruptured in her brain and left her fighting for her life. She woke up in a hospital soon after with serious deficiencies to her reading, speaking, and writing abilities, and an unfamiliar diagnosis: aphasia. This would be shocking news for anyone, but Lauren was a voracious reader, an actress, director, dramaturg, and pursuing her PhD. At any other period of her life, this diagnosis would have been a devastating blow. But she woke up . . . different. She returned to her childhood home to recover, grappling with a muted inner monologue and fractured sense of self.



Soon after, Lauren began a journal to chronicle her year following the rupture. A Stitch of Time is the remarkable result, an Oliver Sacks-like case study of a brain slowly piecing itself back together, featuring clinical research interwoven with Lauren's personal narrative and actual journal entries that marked her progress. Alternating between fascination and frustration, she relearns and re-experiences many of the things we take for granted. Deeply personal and powerful, A Stitch of Time is an unforgettable journey of self-discovery, resilience, and hope.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

11/28/2016
On a trip to Scotland in 2007, Marks, who was then 27, suffered a brain aneurysm that left her unable comprehend the written word and made it difficult for her to communicate verbally. In this engrossing memoir, she takes readers on a journey of the ever-fascinating mind and her own long road to recovery. Through her journal entries and notes, she describes what it’s like to come back from debilitating brain injury. She explores how we understand language and why it makes up so much of one’s sense of self. The story is broken into four parts, with markers for each month of her first year of recovery. Marks gives an inside account of a brain in the act of healing—including all the ups, downs, and complications—and also supplies useful information for those suffering from aphasia, including a detailed list of books and studies by others. Marks provides a story of hope. Agent: Bonnie Nadell, Hill Nadell Literary. (May)

From the Publisher

A Stitch of Time is fascinating reading for those who want to learn how language works.” —Dr. Temple Grandin, author of The Autistic Brain and Thinking in Pictures

“In this sometimes harrowing, sometimes funny, and always very human memoir, Lauren Marks brings us through the year an aneurysm ruptured in her brain leaving her with aphasia. How the loss and return of language changed her is a remarkable journey that she shares with intelligence and grace. A Stitch of Time will leave you hopeful and dazzled and grateful that Marks found words again and shared them with us here.” —Ann Hood, author of The Book That Matters Most and The Obituary Writer

"As an avid reader of neurologist Oliver Sacks, I’ve long been intrigued about the mysterious connections between the brain, the mind, and the imagination. But where Sacks writes about what his patients experience, we now get to hear directly from a patient. What a delight to read Lauren Marks’ A Stitch of Time! Her writing is so good and her story so compelling. I devoured the book in a single night." —Sidney D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times best-selling author of A Cast of Killers and Edgar Cayce

“Marks is a gorgeous writer and her story of healing is moving, informative but above all a great read. . . I could not put this book down.” —Heidi W. Durrow, New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky

"There has been over a century of research on Broca's aphasia but few accounts of patients' own experiences as they struggle to recover. A Stitch of Time is a striking exception - it's a thoughtful, introspective memoir that allows us to catch a rare glimpse of the inner mental life of such patients." —Dr. V.S. Ramachandran, author of The Tell-Tale Brain

"A Stitch of Time is a true story of resilience. Far more interesting than an 'overcomer' tale, it's a story of grit and luck and love and patience. An unforgettable read about a remarkable woman." —Emily Rapp, New York Times bestselling author of The Still Point of the Turning World and Poster Child

"When Lauren Marks suffers a hemorrhagic stroke at 27, her reading, writing, and speaking abilities dissolve. A Stitch of Time is the unflinching, deeply moving story of how she found her words again, and discovered the powerful connection between language, memory, and identity. With intelligence and humor, Marks makes the case that who we are is who we remember ourselves to be. I'll be thinking about this book for a long time." —Jessica Fechtor, bestselling author of Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals That Brought Me Home

"Engrossing . . . A story of hope . . .Marks gives an inside account of a brain in the act of healing—including all the ups, downs, and complications—and also supplies useful information for those suffering from aphasia." —Publishers Weekly

“An illuminating debut memoir. . . .The book's self-exploration of its patient's inner voice, frightening surgical interventions, and delicate recovery is captivating. . . .Readers will be compelled by the journey of a writer whose voice, however changed, remains her own.” —Kirkus Reviews

"When Lauren Marks suffers a hemorrhagic stroke at 27, her reading, writing, and speaking abilities dissolve.
A Stitch of Time is the unflinching, deeply moving story of how she found her words again, and discovered the powerful connection between language, memory, and identity. With intelligence and humor, Marks makes the case that who we are is who we remember ourselves to be. I'll be thinking about this book for a long time." —Jessica Fechtor, bestselling author of Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals That Brought Me Home

"A deeply personal—and often surprising—perspective on aphasia." —The Washington Post

"Marks's story is humbling and hopeful, a demonstration of the mind's flexibility and resourcefulness to heal, morph and press on, even when met with potentially life-threatening circumstances." —Shelf Awareness for Readers

From the Publisher - AUDIO COMMENTARY

"Engrossing . . . A story of hope . . . Marks gives an inside account of a brain in the act of healing-including all the ups, downs, and complications-and also supplies useful information for those suffering from aphasia." —Publishers Weekly

AUGUST 2017 - AudioFile

While performing onstage at a bar during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, 27-year-old actress and writer Lauren Marks suffered a ruptured cerebral aneurysm. Her struggles to recover her language skills and her life following brain surgeries and aphasia are well rendered through Tavia Gilbert's narration. Gilbert reads the selections from Marks's journal with pauses and word substitutions, interjecting a hesitant "no" here and there to reflect Marks’s struggle to reclaim her language, memory, and, ultimately, her identity. Though her performance occasionally sounds a bit over the top, Gilbert's expressive narration is tonally varied and well paced, capturing Marks’s emotional journey. S.E.G. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2017-03-15
A young woman is forced to unpack her own mind after suffering a life-threatening brain aneurysm.For a book about a woman whose brain nearly killed her and left her personality inexorably changed, there's a counterintuitively strong sense of ego in this illuminating debut memoir by writer and activist Marks. On Aug. 23, 2007, the author, a theater actress and director, was singing karaoke in a bar in Edinburgh when she collapsed onstage. She awoke to a phenomenon she describes as "the Quiet," a changed sense of consciousness attributed to the massive aneurysm that might have killed her. Her most profound symptom was not distress but aphasia, a critically compromised ability to read, write, or speak. Much of the material is awkward yet strangely expressive—Marks shares copies of her first abortive attempts to write—but it's also revelatory about the process of recovery. "In my journals, a discovered word was a sacrament—a thing I could write," she remembers. "And if I could write the thing, I could read it. If I could read the thing, I could often say it. The process indicated that there was much more to explore, a rapturous language life that could be sought, and more importantly, found." The book's self-exploration of its patient's inner voice, frightening surgical interventions, and delicate recovery is captivating, but the ups and downs of her personal life are less so. It's uncomfortable to see Marks lash out at her father ("You cannot write about this. None of this. No more EMAILS. NO BOOK. NOT EVER.") and equally so to experience the protracted death of her relationship with a boyfriend. Still, while the book lacks the sweetness of Jessica Fechtor's Stir (2015) or the scientific detachment of Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight (2008), readers will be compelled by the journey of a writer whose voice, however changed, remains her own. A cerebral travelogue from a writer revealing how she got from there to here.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170544806
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	05/02/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	1,076,239

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