On Sale March 23, 2027

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A uniquely honest insider’s view of medicine by a doctor-turned-patient faced with her own medical mystery.

Days before she planned to retire after decades as a doctor, Suzanne Koven broke her wrist. In the aftermath, she developed a strange complication: Koven’s right hand, which hadn’t been injured, became excruciatingly painful and was paralyzed. Even more disturbing, she lost any sense that her hand belonged to her. Patients with chronic pain and mind-body syndromes―mostly women―are often dismissed as anxious or hysterical. Koven had believed, irrationally, that as a doctor she was invulnerable to such conditions. But like any other patient, she had to make sense of her new and altered self. Her search took her from the writings of Audre Lorde to scientific journals, an acupuncturist’s table, and the case reports of a Civil War doctor. Weaving narrative, literature, neuroscience, and medical history, Koven explores how we can heal, even when medicine is unable to cure. At a time when trust in doctors is cratering and physician burnout is at an all-time high, The Mirror Box offers a hopeful meditation on science, healing, and our common humanity.

Reviews

“The Mirror Box masterfully examines the invisible architecture of suffering: memory, perception, identity, and the stories we construct to make sense of ourselves. It is a beautifully unsettling exploration of aging, impermanence, and life’s vulnerable seasons of transition. Precise, elegant, and deeply intelligent, Koven writes with rare clarity about the body’s betrayals, the ache of loss, and the universal longing to remain recognizable, especially to ourselves. A true gem of a book.”
― Rana Awdish, MD, Professor of Medicine Michigan State University School of Medicine and bestselling author of In Shock and After Shock

“Suzanne Koven seamlessly inhabits doctor, patient, researcher, historian, and writer, revealing medicine as both science and deeply human story. I learned something on every page.”
― Weike Wang, author of Joan is Okay