Publisher Description
Growing up in the fifties, Carolyn Spiro was always in the shadow of her more intellectually dominant and social outgoing twin, Pamela. But as the twins approached adolescence, Pamela began to succumb to schizophrenia, hearing disembodied voices and eventually suffering many breakdowns and hospitalizations.
Divided Minds is a dual memoir of identical twins, one of whom faces a life sentence of schizophrenia, and the other who becomes a psychiatrist, after entering the spotlight that had for so long been focused on her sister. Told in the alternating voices of the sisters, Divided Minds is a heartbreaking account of the far reaches of madness, as well as the depths of ambivalence and love between twins. It is a true and unusually frank story of identical twins with very different identities and wildly different experiences of the world around them.
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“This harrowing but arresting memoir—written in alternating voices by identical twins…reveals how devastating schizophrenia is to both the victim and those who love her.”
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Publishers Weekly (starred review)
About the Authors
Carolyn Spiro graduated from Harvard Medical School and completed a year of medical residency before going into psychiatry at Harvard’s Mass. Mental Health Center. After ten years in Boston she moved to CT where she has a private psychiatric practice.
Pamela Spiro Wagner wrote Divided Minds with her identical twin sister, Carolyn S. Spiro MD, a psychiatrist. She also illustrates her experiences with her schizophrenia diagnosis and Lyme disease through poetry and art.
About the Narrators
Kimberly Farr is an actress and winner of numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards for narration. She has appeared on Broadway and at the New York Shakespeare Festival, the Roundabout Theatre, Playwright’s Horizons, and the American Place. She created the role of “Eve” in Arthur Miller’s first and only musical, Up from Paradise, which was directed by the author. She appeared with Vanessa Redgrave in the Broadway production of The Lady from the Sea and has acted in regional theaters across the country, including a performance in the original production of The 1940’s Radio Hour at Washington, DC’s Arena Stage.
Amanda Carlin is an actress and Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator. She has appeared in such television shows as Law & Order, Lost, Bones, and The West Wing.