What happens when brilliance collides with untreated mental illness? Jonathan Rosen has spent a lifetime trying to answer that question.
In The Best Minds, Rosen chronicles the extraordinary and tragic life of his childhood best friend, Michael Laudor. Once a Yale prodigy with a dazzling future, Michael’s story took a devastating turn. After a psychotic break, he reentered the world still haunted by delusions. He went to law school, sold a memoir, and inspired a Hollywood bidding war. Then, in a moment shaped by unchecked paranoia, he killed the woman he loved.
Part memoir, part cultural reckoning, this is a haunting examination of genius, ambition, and the systemic failures that let tragedy unfold. A Pulitzer Prize finalist and one of Obama’s favorite books of 2023, this story refuses to be forgotten.
