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

The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions is a 2023 memoir by Jonathan Rosen. The book recounts the author’s friendship and rivalry with Michael Laudor, a brilliant young man who developed paranoid schizophrenia. Rosen charts Michael’s meteoric success and ultimate decline as paranoid delusions lead him to kill his pregnant fiancée. As well as providing Michael’s personal history, the author examines the history of psychiatry and the cultural and social changes that contributed to his friend’s tragic decline. The book’s themes include The Dynamics of Friendship, The Nature and Impact of Mental Illness, and Attitudes Toward Mental Illness.

This guide uses the 2023 Penguin e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source material features depictions of violence and mental illness. Additionally, the source material cites offensive terms for people who have mental illnesses, which are replicated in this guide only in direct quotes from the source material.

Summary

In 1973, 10-year-old Jonathan Rosen and his family move to New Rochelle, New York. Jonathan becomes best friends with Michael Laudor. The boys have much in common as both are the sons of Jewish professors and want to be writers. However, while Michael is precociously confident, Jonathan is shy and has anxiety disorder. As well as friends, the boys are rivals, and Jonathan constantly feels overshadowed by Michael’s brilliance. One day, Jonathan is beaten up by a group of teenagers while Michael runs away. The incident causes unspoken tension in the friendship. Jonathan and Michael both work on the school’s newspaper, the Herald, and want to become editor in chief. When Jonathan is given the job, Michael resigns.

Michael and Jonathan both attend Yale. Michael establishes a reputation as an eccentric genius and graduates summa cum laude in only three years. He is recruited by a management consulting firm, Bain & Company, whose employees work long hours for impressive salaries. Meanwhile, Jonathan begins a doctorate at Berkeley.

Michael quits Bain and returns to New Rochelle to become a writer. He works on a spy novel and begins to see his characters in the street. He also believes that his parents’ phone has been tapped and he is being followed. Michael is often at the “Gatsby House” owned by psychiatrist Jane Ferber. Jane leads “the Network”—a group of people who believe mental illness should be treated within the community rather than by state-run psychiatric institutions.

Jonathan moves to New York City and learns from his mother that Michael is in a private psychiatric hospital. His parents persuaded Michael to admit himself when he became convinced that they were Nazis and armed himself with a kitchen knife. He also burned the novel he was writing on his parents’ driveway. Michael is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and is prescribed medication. He defers his offer of a place at Yale Law School for a year.

After eight months in the psychiatric hospital, Michael moves into a halfway house for people with mental illnesses. Schizophrenia adversely affects Michael’s memory and attention span. Michael’s psychiatrists advise him to give up writing, suggesting he should take a low-stress cashier’s job. However, Michael opts to go to Yale Law School instead.

Michael continues to suffer delusions and hallucinations at Yale. For example, every morning, he believes his bed is on fire. However, his professors and fellow students are extremely supportive. The law school creates the two-year post-doctoral associate role for Michael. During this time, he writes articles arguing for a change to disability laws. He also starts dating Carrie Costello. Meanwhile, Jonathan has his first novel published and marries his girlfriend, Mychal.

Michael fails to get a job after Yale. However, a New York Times article changes the course of his life. The article lists Michael’s achievements and presents him as an inspirational role model for people with schizophrenia. Publishers engage in a bidding war for Michael’s memoir, and he accepts an offer of over $1 million for the movie rights.

Michael makes no progress on his memoir, The Laws of Madness, and his mental health declines. Jane Ferber and Michael’s psychiatrist are aware of his delusions but cannot persuade him to take his prescribed medication. Furthermore, there are no legal grounds for enforced hospitalization, as Michael’s psychiatrist does not believe his patient is violent.

On June 17, 1998, Michael stabs Carrie to death, believing she is a non-human imposter. A coroner’s report reveals that Carrie was pregnant. Michael flees the scene but later flags down Officer Ellen Brewer, stating that he might have killed his girlfriend. In custody, Michael punches Officer Brewer, dislocating her jaw, and it takes three officers to restrain him. Major newspapers report the crime and speak degradingly of Michael’s mental illness.

Michael is assessed as unfit for trial and is sent to a psychiatric hospital to be medicated. In May 2000, his insanity plea is accepted, and Michael is sent to a maximum-security psychiatric hospital. Movie executives abandon production of The Laws of Madness. In 2003, Jonathan begins visiting Michael in the hospital. They talk about their childhood.

Jonathan Rosen concludes that Michael’s story illustrates the failures of the US mental healthcare system. The process of closing down state psychiatric hospitals without providing sufficient community care left people with mental illnesses and their families unsupported. The author argues that to help those with schizophrenia, it is essential to be realistic about the disease. Patients usually require medication and may display violent traits.