The Mind Reels

In his debut novel, longtime observer of culture and politics Fredrik deBoer depicts mental illness in all its grim and ugly reality, free of our culture's endless romanticization of insanity.

In a dorm room at her safety school, surrounded by corn-fed boys and contemptuous girls, Alice is losing her mind. Her first semester is spent clinging to middling grades between drunken hookups and roommate fights. The next brings sleepless nights, extreme weight loss, and effortless, compulsive energy, paused only by an unexpected summoning from the RA for evaluation. Thus begins an endless march of lithium, antidepressants, and Klonopin; doctors and therapists—when health insurance allows—along with overwhelmed parents and well-intentioned friends; all helpless bystanders as Alice descends deeper into chaos.

As chilling as a psychiatric case study, as wry and precise as Flaubert, The Mind Reels peels back society's polite trappings to portray the experience of mental illness in all its complexity.

Publication date: October 7, 2025

Format: Trade Paper

Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.25

Page count: 168 pages

ISBN: 9781566897372

Fredrik deBoer is a writer and academic. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Playboy, and Harper’s among many others. His nonfiction books include The Cult of Smart (All Points Books, 2020) and How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement (Simon & Schuster, 2023). He holds a PhD in English with a concentration in writing assessment and higher education policy from Purdue University. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, his son Junho, and his cat Suavecito.

A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2025

“Instead of falling into clichés or sentimentality about mental health, deBoer presents Alice’s struggles with bleak humor and emotional clarity. His compelling novel . . . [grapples] unflinchingly with [mental illness] and modern alienation in a way that will captivate readers.”

—Booklist, starred review

“A searing portrait of a woman on the brink.”

—Publishers Weekly

“One of the most precise and harrowing depictions of mental illness I’ve ever read. This is a relentless, compassionate, and beautiful debut novel. I couldn’t look away.”

—Andrew Martin, author of Cool for America

“The Mind Reels is that rarest of things: a novel that is genuinely important. DeBoer delivers truths about mental illness that many of us may find both surprising and haunting. That he does this in the context of a novel that is beautifully written, character-driven and pulsing with forward momentum makes it a real artistic achievement as well as an intellectual one.”

—Adelle Waldman, author of Help Wanted