Outside Event #3: Molly Crosby

On April 1st, I attended a reading at Burkes Bookstore. Molly Crosby read from her book Asleep which is about a pandemic from the 1920s and 30s called encephalitis lethargica, the disease that makes you sleepy. She read the prologue from the book which was a story about her grandmother who suffered from this disease. Molly's grandmother spent about 180 of her life asleep. She was sixteen at the time. After she awoke, she stayed pretty weak for a few years, but she later married and had four children. She went on to live a fairly normal life, but other victims did not.

The disease varied in all cases. Some were asleep for a few days, some for a few months or years, and some were never to awake again. Some of the cases even suffered insanity. Mrs. Crosby described some of the cases while everyone sat kind of in a trance listening to her. Everyone seemed enlightened by what she was talking about. It was an intriguing story to hear of her grandmother who suffered from the disease. She talked a lot about her research and then she asked if anyone had questions.

Many people had questions. One question was "How hard was your research?" and she said it was difficult because at the time not many people had written about the story and there weren't many journals that she could get her hands on. She had to get a research grant because of HIPAA laws to be able to look at the Medical Journals. Once she got her research grant she began reading all these files on patients who suffered from this disease. Cases that started from what appeared to be Parkinson's that turned into people sleeping for days upon days. Crosby was inspired by Oliver Sacks and some of his research with the disease and she even spoke about his book The Awakenings. Since his book, there has been a movie made about his encounters with this disease. Molly Crosby's book reading was really interesting to see how science writing and research is difficult. It was really nice to see how everyone interacted with her and questioned what she encountered during her research and her to able to have an answer for every question thrown at her. The questions varied from something little to something more complex, and she could answer it. It was my favorite book reading thus far.