Neil Fein's Blog

Through the Darkness: One Man's Fight to Overcome Epilepsy, by Mike Henle


As an epileptic myself, it's difficult for me to separate myself from this book. While I never had seizures as bad as Mr. Henle did, I had several Grand Mal or what we'd now call Tonic-Clonic seizures. (I liked the old name; you can translate it into English as "Big bad".) They were brought under control with medication, but I've been having side effects from the meds over the last year or so.

I went looking for a book that would help me get a handle on this. The book is a memoir, and withdrawal from Phenobarbitol is one of the issues discussed, and Tegretol was mentioned. The option of surgery was also discussed.

Unfortunately, it doesn't go into enough detail to be useful as either a personal memoir or a book on the medical issues. How were his parents and, later, wife and children reacting? This is only touched on near the end. Can we find out more about drug withdrawal, or perhaps about the research he conducted into the cause of his epilepsy? More about the surgery that cured him would be nice. And some detail on the relationships he had with his physicians and his surgeon would have been wonderful. The first several chapters need a reworking, expansion and, perhaps, expansion of the entire book. It reads like an outline; chapters are a few pages long.

However, about halfway through, I realized I was turning the pages faster and faster. The story is gripping, and once Mr. Henle gets comfortable with his writing style, it's a joy to read. The ending devolves into messages for his friends and family, (which was the purpose of the book).

As a fellow epileptic, I find it difficult to write this, but Through the Darkness could have been a much, much better book. At perhaps triple the length, Mr. Henle could have gone into more detail, and perhaps even told the stories of others around him. And he would have had space to stabilize his writing more. He's a professional writer, and I'm sure he has it in him to do this. I hope he writes another book.


Overall, I'd recommend it as an inspirational narrative for friends and family of epileptics who might be surgery candidates, but not to anyone doing research on the condition.

Tags: books, epilepsy