Man Who Couldn't Stop (Adam)

The Man Who Couldn't Stop:  OCD and the True Story of a Life Lost in Thought
David Adam, 2015
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374223953


Summary
An intimate look at the power of intrusive thoughts, how our brains can turn against us, and living with obsessive compulsive disorder

Have you ever had a strange urge to jump from a tall building or steer your car into oncoming traffic? You are not alone. In this captivating fusion of science, history, and personal memoir, David Adam explores the weird thoughts that exist within every mind, and how they drive millions of us toward obsession and compulsion.

Adam, an editor at Nature and an accomplished science writer, has suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder for twenty years, and The Man Who Couldn’t Stop is his unflinchingly honest attempt to understand the condition and his experiences. What might lead an Ethiopian schoolgirl to eat a wall of her house, piece by piece, or a pair of brothers to die beneath an avalanche of household junk that they had compulsively hoarded?

At what point does a harmless idea, a snowflake in a clear summer sky, become a blinding blizzard of unwanted thoughts? Drawing on the latest research on the brain, as well as historical accounts of patients and their treatments, this is a book that will challenge the way you think about what is normal and what is mental illness.

Told with fierce clarity, humor, and urgent lyricism, this extraordinary book is both the haunting story of a personal nightmare and a fascinating doorway into the darkest corners of our minds. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Dr. David Adam is a writer and editor at Nature, the world’s leading scientific journal. Before that he was a specialist correspondent for The Guardian for several years, writing on science, medicine, and the environment. He earned his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Leeds University in the UK. Named feature writer of the year by the Association of British Science Writers, Adam has reported from Antarctica, the Arctic, China, and the depths of the Amazon jungle.

In 2015 Adam published The Man Who Couldn't Stop: OCD and the True Story of a Life Lost in Thought. The book is more than an objective study of a brain disorder. Although not a memoir, the book draws from the author's own life experiences with OCD, the first symptoms of which he experienced as a college student in 1991. (Adapted from the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Adam's case history conveys a palpable sense of what it's like to live in a brain possessed by obsessive thoughts, but it mainly serves as the launching point for a broad-ranging odyssey across the history and science of O.C.D.… Adam is a companionable Virgil, guiding the reader through the hellish circles of the disorder, explaining scientific concepts in clear, nontechnical prose…. For sufferers, the thirst for relief from intrusive thoughts and compulsions can be unending and, ultimately, unquenchable. David Adam's book should provide them with consolation (you are not alone) and hope (he's much better now)—and it provides all readers with a fascinating glimpse of an unusual but enduring form of psychopathology that sheds light on how our elegantly evolutionarily designed brains can give rise to minds that sometimes work in painful, maladaptive ways.
Scott Stossel - New York Times Book Review


[A] searing account.... The mental-disorder memoir...has become its own genre, and works such as Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Prozac Nation, Andrew Solomon’s The Noonday Demon and most recently Scott Stossel’s My Age of Anxiety set a high standard. In The Man Who Couldn’t Stop, Adam more than meets it, writing with honesty, compassion and even humor about a malady so often stigmatized and caricatured.
Washington Post


A compelling portrait.... This is the most comprehensive and compassionate book on OCD to date, and it offers hope that our thinking and behavior—both individual and collective—can change.
Los Angeles Times


Adam provides a compelling, often frightening, description of the havoc OCD can wreak. He also provides hope that while OCD can derail even the most placid life, it can be overcome.
USA Today


[A] fascinating study of the living nightmare that is obsessive compulsive disorder . . . [David Adam] has written one of the best and most readable studies of a mental illness to have emerged in recent years.... [The Man Who Couldn’t Stop is] a wide-ranging exploration of the illness, looking at possible causes and cures. It takes in traditional psychiatry..., evolutionary psychology, genetics, aversion therapy, philosophy, social history, religion, neuroscience, anthropology and even zoology.... An honest and open and, yes, maybe life-changing work.
Matt Haig - Observer (UK)


Adam, an award-winning science writer and editor at the journal Nature, is uniquely placed to examine the genetic, evolutionary, psychological, medical and "just plain unfortunate" possible causes of OCD. He does so with vigour, sharp analysis, compassion and occasional humor.... A clear-sighted and eminently accessible account.... The Man Who Couldn’t Stop is a fundamentally important book.
Helen Davis - Sunday Times (UK)


[An] engaging, exhaustively researched neuro memoir, a blend of brain science and personal history.
Melanie McGrath - Evening Standard (UK)


A captivating first-person account of how a blizzard of unwanted thoughts can become a personal nightmare. At times shocking, at times tragic, at times unbelievably funny, it is a wonderful read.
James Lloyd - BBC Focus (UK)


This blew me away. Stunning.
Ian Sample - Guardian (UK)


The greatest strength of his book—part memoir, part scientific treatise on obsessive-compulsive disorder—is that it meets [people who call themselves "a little OCD"] on their level: "Imagine you can never turn it off." Adam's personal insights, and case studies from the famous (Winston Churchill, Nikola Tesla) to the obscure (an Ethiopian schoolgirl who ate a wall of mud bricks), make that feat of imagination both possible and painful.
Mother Jones


In a wide-reaching discussion that spans the spectrum of obsession, Nature editor David Adam strikes an impressive balance between humor and poignancy, and between entertaining and informing. Adam seamlessly moves between personal stories of his own struggles with OCD and case studies of other people with the disorder...while his smooth prose ensures an enjoyable read.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) Riveting, at times disturbing, but always enlightening.... For all the impressive marshaling of information, it is Adam’s own story of his struggles with the condition...that is the most captivating aspect of this impressive work. Adam clearly shows both the devastating impact our thoughts can have when they turn against us, and how science is helping us fight back.
Booklist


(Starred review.) An engrossing first-person study of obsessive-compulsive disorder from within and without."... Adam delves deeply into OCD's possible causes, its varieties...and treatments, breaking down this complex condition in easily accessible layman's terms. Well-researched, witty, honest and irreverent, Adam's account proves as irresistible as his subject.
Kirkus Reviews

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