The Overlife: A Tale of Schizophrenia

The author of this book, Diana Dirkby, is an Australian-born research mathematician who lives with paranoid schizophrenia, a severe brain disorder, as did her mother. The title, “The Overlife,” suggests that a diagnosis of schizophrenia can be the beginning of a new, worthwhile life and not simply the death of the hopes and dreams that preceded the diagnosis. This book gives a fictional account of a mother and daughter living with paranoid schizophrenia. We follow the widely disparate effec...