14/07/2017
Ik verheug e er nu al op !
Finally, finally my memoir is finished and will be published by Basic Books in October 2017.
The title, Becoming Myself, is not what I originally intended. Some time ago I came across a stupendous phrase by Nietzsche in Thus Spake Zarathustra that enchanted me and I always wanted to use as the title of my memoir: “Was that life? Well then, once again.” Though I tried hard, I could not persuade the publisher who disliked the title and feared it would confuse readers. Next I considered another of my favorite Nietzsche quotes, “Become who you are” and that eventually morphed into “Becoming Myself.”
The first several chapters of the memoir describe some events in my therapy practice which transport me back to my early life lived in an unsavory part of Washington DC and later chapters describe my education and my choice of medicine and psychiatry as a profession. I write of marriage and family, of those who most influenced me and of my development both as a psychiatrist and a writer.
It was hard to finish. I hated to let this book go because I know it will be my last book. My friends roll their eyes as I say this: they’ve heard it often before. But this time I really mean it. I’ve always had a large stack of unwritten books in my mind but the last one was always to be a memoir. I finish it with a sense of pride - it is the book I wanted to write – but I finish it also with a sense of sadness, even grief, because I now face the new task, so difficult for committed writers, of living well without a book project.
