Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog
The Best Minds (A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions)
Author: Jonathan Rosen
Narration by: Jonathan Rosen
Jonathan Rosen (Author, Yale graduate, writes for The Jewish Daily Forward, and the Free Press.)
As a person who has lived through the same generation as Jonathan Rosen, his story is interesting partly because it tells what it is like to be born a Jew in America. In many ways, one finds life as a Jew is no different than it is for any American. Most Americans are born into a family that cares for them and influences who they become as adults. Children are born with innate abilities that are either cultivated or ignored by their parents. Some parents are too busy with their own lives to offer care a child may benefit from with more attention. It appears Jonathan Rosen is born into a family that cultivates his abilities despite their busy lives. One wonders if that is a matter of ethnic tradition or inherent nature. One suspects it is a little of both.
In “The Best Minds”, an important part of being raised a Jew is education that encourages and reinforces Jewish identity through rituals like the bar mitzva.
The bar mitzva and bat mitzva (for girls) is a coming-of-age ceremony at age 13 (sometimes 12 for girls) where a Jewish child memorizes and recites passages from the Torah. On the one hand it reinforces one’s identity with a particular ethnicity. On the other, it is one of many exercises of memory that reinforces one’s ability to succeed academically. Much of one’s success as an accomplished adult is recall of information whether a doctor, lawyer, or merchant chief. From a young age, memorization is an important skill for Jewish children. One wonders how much tradition has to do with the brilliance of Einstein, Oppenheimer, Salk and so many other Jews of the world. This is not to suggest being raised in a Jewish family is not as traumatic and unpredictable as any child born but to recognize ethnic customs make a difference in children’s lives. The great contributions to science and art by Jews makes one wish they might live life over again with more positively ritualized cultivation.
Michael Laudor (Yale graduate, subject of “The Best Minds)
However, there is much more to Rosen’s story. His life is intertwined with the life of Michael Laudor, a close childhood friend who is raised in a similar environment and recognized as a prodigy. However, Lauder succumbs to schizophrenia. This is not to suggest Jews or any ethnicity is prone to psychological imbalance. Psychiatric imbalance is not defined by ethnicity but exists as a potential for every human being. One doubts there is any defense against psychological abnormality whether Jew, gentile, or other.
Laudor and Rosen as childhood friends.
Laudor and Rosen were close friends. Rosen recognizes his friend has a superior mind, i.e., one of “The Best Minds” of Rosen’s high school’ years. Rosen struggles to understand what happened to his childhood friend. Both Rosen and Laudor are accepted at Yale. Laudor chooses law as his course of study. Rosen goes on to California to get a PhD in literature. Their dual biographies make Rosen’s story impactful. Rosen explains how intelligence, ambition, and success can be destroyed by mental illness.
Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
Laudor is a wunderkind who performs at a level far beyond his age group. He graduates from Yale and decides wealth is a goal to be achieved. He is hired by an investment consulting firm which offers him an opportunity to become super-rich. Rosen infers Laudor succeeds. From the outside, Laudor appears to be highly successful, but he becomes dissatisfied with his life and quits the firm that hired him. Rosen stays in touch with Laudor and writes “The Best Minds” to reveal what he thinks he knows about what happened to his childhood friend. The beginning of Laudor’s imbalance appears to Rosen when Laudor explains he is being followed, monitored and targeted by unknown malefactors. Before that conversation, the erratic behavior of Rosen’s friend seemed like a matter of burnout from his high-flying experience as an investment consultant. The intensity of Laudor’s paranoia makes Rosen believe something more serious is at the root of his friend’s behavior.
Rosen stays in touch with Laudor–talking to him about what is going on in his life. He tries to get Laudor to see the falseness of his delusions without triggering defensiveness. Rosen avoids contradicting Laudor by trying to be supportive and encouraging him to seek help. On the one hand one wonders what more could Rosen do. How else could he intervene in Laudor’s spiral into what is later diagnosed as schizophrenia? A reader/listener wonders what they would or could have done.
Michael Laudor murders his fiancée, Carrie Costello, in 1998. She is pregnant at the time of her death.
Laudor had grown to believe his girlfriend had become a part of a conspiracy to harm him and that he needed to defend himself despite her trying to care for him. His brilliant mind manufactured a false reality. His delusion leads to the fatal stabbing of Ms. Costello. After the homicide, Laudor calls 911. He is arrested and transferred to a psychiatric facility and later found guilty by reason of insanity. He died in 2022 at the age of 56 in a New York State psychiatric hospital, never recovering from severe schizophrenia.
“The Best Minds” is Rosen’s effort to understand how genius and madness can be intertwined. The boon and bane of a brilliant mind is that it can correlate facts with causes to reveal the mysteries of the universe but also the demons of false correlation and belief. Correlation is not causation without objective and repeatable experimental proof.
The question one asks oneself after finishing Rosen’s book is what one can do differently to keep someone from losing their way in life whether he/she is a genius or not?
REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE 