First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.

280 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

"Simon & Schuster nonfiction original hardcover" -- Title page verso.

Just twenty-two years old, Su Meck was already married and the mother of two children in 1988 when a ceiling fan in the kitchen of her home fell from its mounting and struck her in the head. She survived the life-threatening swelling in her brain that resulted from the accident, but when she regained consciousness in the hospital the next day, she didn't know her own name. She didn't recognize a single family member or friend, she couldn't read or write or brush her teeth or use a fork--and she didn't have even a scrap of memory from her life up to that point. The fiercely independent and outspoken young woman she had been vanished completely. Most patients who suffer amnesia as a result of a head injury eventually regain their memories, but Su never did. Adrift in the chaos of mental data that most of us think of as everyday life, Su became an adept mimic, fashioning a self and a life out of careful observation and ironclad routine. As a series of personally devastating events shattered the "normal" life she had worked so hard to build, Su realized that she would have to grow up all over again, and finally take control of the strange second life she had awoken into.

Meck, Su -- Mental health.

Amnesiacs -- Biography.

Brain -- Concussion -- Complications.

De Visé, Daniel,

9781451685817 hardback

1451685815 hardback