The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

Michael Laudor is the subject of The Best Minds. After graduating with the highest distinctions from Yale, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Despite the challenges of his illness, he attended Yale Law School, where he became a disabilities advocate. He later became a role model for people with mental illnesses, selling the movie and publishing rights to his story for over $1 million. However, in 1998, aged 35, Michael killed his girlfriend during a delusional, psychotic episode. After successfully pleading insanity, he was committed to a high-security psychiatric facility.

Rosen’s memoir humanizes Michael by portraying the trajectory of his life from childhood. The author presents Michael as his foil. The boys share similar backgrounds, have mutual intellectual interests, and attend the same educational institutions. However, while Jonathan is shy, fearful and self-conscious, Michael is confident, fearless, sociable, and notably unconcerned by the impression he makes on others. Together they are an “example of parallel lives running on divergent tracks” (43).

Rosen vividly conveys Michael’s personality and unique energy, even as a child. He notes that his friend has a distinctive walk “oddly purposeful for a kid our age, as if he actually had someplace to go” (6). Michael’s imposing physical presence earns him the nickname “Big,” while his exceptionally sharp mind intimidates his teachers and is the envy of Jonathan. Rosen also conveys his friend’s less admirable qualities, including his “arrogance.” The result is a fully rounded portrait of Michael as an individual.

Michael is central to the book’s exploration of The Nature and Impact of Mental Illness. Rosen highlights how Michael is full of potential and firmly in charge of his own life narrative until the onset of paranoid schizophrenia. The text outlines how mental illness robs Michael of his brilliant prospects and impairs the cognitive abilities that form a key part of his identity. Michael’s trajectory also illustrates Attitudes Toward Mental Illness as he becomes famous for “denying the stereotype, and infamous for conforming to it” (514). Initially feted as the poster boy of paranoid schizophrenia, his killing of Carrie is later used to perpetuate negative views of mental illness. Michael’s dramatic fall from grace is summed up when The New York Times reports his crime on the same page that once hailed him as an inspirational role model. Rosen highlights the irony that Michael is only treated as a role model for paranoid schizophrenia when he does not display any of the disease’s symptoms.

Michael’s father, Chuck, shares his son’s confident energy. The competitive manner of the economics lecturer occasionally borders on aggression. However, Chuck is portrayed as a complex figure who acts as the primary “nurturing male” when Michael is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

Raised by a mother with the same disease, Chuck understands The Nature and Impact of Mental Illness. At the same time, he refuses to accept that Michael’s prospects are limited to working as a cashier. Consequently, he encourages Michael’s entry to Yale Law School. While Chuck is eager for Michael to be independent and leave the family home, he continues to support his son by calling him each morning to talk him out of the delusion that his bed is on fire. Chuck is also instrumental in persuading Michael to be voluntarily hospitalized after his first mental health crisis.

Rosen infers that Chuck’s death from prostate cancer contributes to Michael’s second mental health crisis. Left to support her son alone, Ruth Laudor lacks Chuck’s ability to reason with Michael and persuade him to take his medication. Her situation underlines the lack of healthcare assistance for families whose loved ones have severe mental illnesses.

Robert and Norma Rosen are Jonathan’s parents, and influential figures in his development. As a feminist author, Norma illustrates that the life Jonathan and Michael aspire to as writers is possible. Meanwhile, German literature professor Robert passes on his love of books to his son. His history also makes Jonathan deeply conscious of his Jewish heritage: After his parents were killed in the Holocaust, Robert was sent to the US as an unaccompanied six-year-old. The remembrance of how his grandparents died places additional pressure on Jonathan to perform well at his bar mitzvah.

Jonathan takes after his father in his aversion to conflict. Comparing him to Michael’s father, Rosen notes that while “Chuck charged at you head-on; my father preferred oblique approaches and swift exits” (17). Later in the memoir, Robert Rosen illustrates the spectrum of mental illnesses as, along with the physical symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, he develops memory problems and dementia.

As Michael’s long-term girlfriend and the primary victim of his paranoid schizophrenia, Carrie embodies The Nature and Impact of Mental Illness upon loved ones. Her death illustrates Rosen’s argument that the potentially dangerous symptoms of severe mental illness are too often overlooked until a patient proves themselves to be violent.

While Rosen did not know Carrie, he attempts to honor her memory in the memoir. The author points out that her importance was too frequently overlooked by Michael’s supporters and by the newspaper coverage after her death. By interviewing close friends and colleagues of Carrie during his research, Rosen paints a clear portrait of her as a caring yet strong individual with impressive talents and ambitions of her own. Countering the perception of Carrie as “the shy guardian watching from the shadows” (408), he depicts her as “Michael’s rock.” The book’s account of Carrie returning from work and being unable to persuade Michael of her identity illustrates the emotional toll of living with a loved one experiencing psychosis. Meanwhile, the distressing details of her death highlight its potential dangers.

“The Network” is a group of idealistic individuals led by psychiatrist Jane Ferber. Jane and her followers are united by the belief that state psychiatric hospitals should be replaced by community care for mental health patients.

The Network illustrates Rosen’s argument that shifting Attitudes Toward Mental Illness impacted the treatment of mental illness, contributing to the process of deinstitutionalization. Its members represent the “tragedy of good intentions” described in the memoir’s title. While their views are driven by compassion and a desire to destigmatize mental illness, they fail to acknowledge that involuntary hospitalization is sometimes the only safe solution for patients and those they live with. Ultimately, the Network’s attempt to spread “its protective umbrella” (181) over Michael is unsuccessful.

Guido Calabresi is the dean of Yale Law School who accepts Michael’s application. Like the members of the Network, he is a well-intentioned optimist who believes in inclusiveness and actively supports Michael. Honoring his pledge to provide an “invisible ramp” to assist Michael, he ensures that the Law School provides a safe space where he can flourish. Like Chuck, Michael considers Guido a key “nurturing male” in his life.

Nevertheless, Rosen suggests that Guido underestimates the nature and severity of Michael’s mental illness. Believing that the Law School has helped Michael to conquer his incurable illness, he fails to foresee the problems his student will have with gaining employment, and his subsequent mental decline.