The Best Minds

The story of a childhood friendship that began in an America losing its innocence and ended in tragedy. An anatomy of the failure of medicine and society to help the severely mentally ill. A fictionalised account of how the best of intentions lead to delusions and ultimately to a crime that shocked an entire country. Jonathan Rosen, in this chronicle of the life of his genius, schizophrenic best friend who murdered his pregnant partner, manages to create a panorama of a historical period, the human psyche, psychiatry, and also of what haunts us on a deeply personal level.