The High Point of My Career Came With a Physical Breakdown

I’ve probably had thousands of migraines. I started experiencing them in my early teens, though they weren’t frequent then, and I dealt with them begrudgingly but not proactively. Medication worked well. By grad school, they were worsening but still manageable.

When my second novel, The Immortalists, sold to a publisher at a level that allowed me to leave my day job in social services and write full time — a rare and extraordinary privilege in the arts — I was wildly grateful. I also felt a lot of pressure. My first novel, The Anatomy of Dreams, hadn’t found a wide readership or sold many copies. My new publisher had taken a chance on me, and I desperately wanted the book to do well. I was given the kind of publicity and touring opportunities I’d dreamed of even before the book actually came out. After publication, I did something like 60 events in 14 months. My migraines were getting worse and worse, but I just thought, I have to push through. Once I get home, I’ll be able to rest.

More than 2 million Ukrainian residents have fled the country, making this Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II. We just assumed the royals hated The Crown, but that may be untrue. The short, strange, very predictable story of Caroline Calloway’s Snake Oil. There’s a full trailer out for Bridgerton, season 2, and to be honest it could use fewer corgis and more shirtless Anthony. Tragically, this isn’t an Onion headline: A new study has found that half of all Americans alive in 2015 were exposed to IQ-lowering levels of lead growing up. With the state expecting the first legal weed shops to open by the end of the year, it has been revealed that the first licenses will be reserved for New Yorkers with marijuana convictions. If you could use a pick-me-up right now — and I think we all could — call 707-998-8410, a new hotline where California elementary-school students dispense pep talks. Then you’ll be having as nice a day as this duck appears to be!

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