Book Review: The Best Minds by Jonathan Rosen
9 min book reviews
Book Review: The Best Minds by Jonathan Rosen
Introduction
The Best Minds by Jonathan Rosen is one of the most ambitious works of narrative nonfiction in recent years—part memoir, part cultural history, part psychological investigation. Rosen uses the tragic life of his childhood friend Michael Laudor as a lens to examine the promises and failures of American mental-health care, the seductive myths we build around intelligence, and the uncomfortable reality that brilliance and fragility often occupy the same space. It is a book about memory, responsibility, and the limits of our ability to understand another person, even someone we love.
A Life That Defied a Simple Story
Rosen and Laudor grew up as near twins: two bookish Jewish boys in New Rochelle, both driven by curiosity and a desire to excel. Laudor’s intellect was so prodigious that he almost seemed destined for greatness, and for a while, that destiny looked secure. He entered Yale, then Yale Law, dazzling classmates and professors with his analytical mind.
But behind the glowing profile pieces and the planned Hollywood movie deal was a different truth: Laudor’s schizophrenia was severe, persistent, and largely untreated. Rosen reconstructs the growing dissonance between the inspirational media narrative—Laudor as a triumphant symbol of “overcoming”—and the lived reality of an illness no amount of brilliance could outthink. The book culminates in the tragic, horrifying act of violence in 1998, when Laudor, in a psychotic state, killed his fiancée, Carrie Costello. Rosen refuses to sensationalize this moment; instead, he interrogates the decades-long chain of decisions, policies, and misunderstandings that made such a tragedy possible.
Themes: Genius, Illness, and the Stories We Tell
Rosen’s central argument is that our cultural narratives about genius distort our understanding of mental illness. We want to believe that extraordinary intellect offers protection, or that suffering somehow deepens brilliance. Laudor’s story exposes the danger of these myths. His talent was real, but it did not shield him from delusions, overwhelming fear, or catastrophic deterioration.
A second major theme is the American mental-health system’s paradox: in the name of protecting individual civil liberties, the system often prevents families from intervening when someone is clearly unable to recognize their own need for help. Rosen explores the legal landscape around involuntary treatment, showing how reforms meant to promote dignity sometimes abandoned the severely ill to the very worst versions of their illness.
