"Wonderful, compassionate, funny, instructive, inspiring and flat-out brilliant," said The New York Daily News about the award-winning 1995 documentary film, "Twitch and Shout." Narrator, associate producer, and photographer for that project, Lowell Handler has lived with Tourette's Syndrome his entire life. Once thought to be a sign of possession, this neurological disorder causes sudden jerking movements and tics, as well as an uncontrollable propensity to curse. In this revealing memoir Handler tells of how Tourette's has shaped his life and provides insight into the strange symptoms that are often debilitating and alienating. As the title suggests, Twitch and Shout is no plea for pity; it is a heartfelt and often humorous effort to reclaim and humanize a disorder that can keep others at a distance. * An excellent resource for students of psychology "Touching...an insightful account of the pain and triumph that one person experienced making peace with the limitations of his existence." --The New York Times Book Review "A mind-bending account of a mind-boggling affliction" --Entertainment Weekly "Lowell Handler writes with enormous honesty, humor and gusto. This is a most engaging inside account of a life, a rich and creative life, with Tourette's." --Oliver Sacks "Very droll...an ever so honest memoir of life with Tourette's Syndrome." --Elle
Tourette's syndrome is a neurological disorder characterized by tics, physical jerks, and random shouts and noises that can include profanity and racial epithets. It's become relatively well known through the writings of neurologist Oliver Sacks (whose bestselling book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat includes several case studies of Touretters--as he dubbed them), and through the 1995 documentary Twitch and Shout, a film coauthored by Lowell Handler and Laurel Chiten, both of whom have the disorder.
Now Handler has written a book with the same name, an attempt to chronicle the disease from the inside, to explore the strange life and symptoms of a person who has discovered, as he puts it, that "the mind has a mind of its own." His personal odyssey includes many digressions into how the disorder has shaped the course of his relationships with his family, his career as a photojournalist, and his sense of purpose and belonging in society. He meets with other Touretters, including a professional basketball player, a medical doctor, and, in one of the book's most surreal episodes, an ex-military man who had served in a nuclear missile silo in charge of the launch keys. But while there is much honesty about the emotional impact of the disorder on an individual's life, Handler (who admits that he suffers from lifelong dyslexia) provides a severely fragmented narrative, jumping from episode to episode with little sense of closure or lessons learned. What's more, he's unable to give much insight into how it feels to have the disorder, or how the mind of someone with Tourette's differs from a nonsufferer. Still, some of his thoughts are intriguing (he posits, for example, that the great 18th-century author Samuel Johnson may have been a Touretter) and individual episodes ring with the resonance of hard-won truth. --John Longenbaugh
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
BRILLIANT....:
Taken from the perspective of an author who lives with Tourette's Syndrome, Lowell Handler provides one of the most vivid everyday observances to a most uncontrollable disorder. What most people have little grasp on, Handler often uses humility and humor to set examples of how only one living with this handicap can describe. Tourette's Syndrome is usually spotted early before the age of eighteen, found to impair males more than females (almost three to one). Tourette's creates involuntary movements and... more info
Excellently Tourettish account of Tourette's:
Many Touretters will say that Tourette's gives rhythm to not only movement and speech, but thought and life as well. This book, with its energetic, pulsing, and sometimes explosive rhythm, certainly seems to bear that out.
The author, who has Tourette's syndrome himself, describes the way Tourette's interplays with and shapes his life, in an integrated way even when he sees it as an interference. He meets people with varying kinds and degrees of Tourette's, along with Oliver Sacks, a famous neurologist... more info
Facing life head on and winning:
Twitch and Shout is a fascinating, moving, and informative account of an artistic young man (the author) who confronts his Tourette Syndrome head on, deliberately living at full tilt in defiance of the much misunderstood disorder.
Moments of transcendent prose alternate with hilarious and sometimes sad memoir.
As an artist and advocate of mastery, I appreciated how the author's challenges shaped his journey, bringing him numerous triumphs, as photographer, author, friend and lover. With objectivity... more info
A Great Inside Story:
I was so impressed with the frankness and openess of this book. Handler allows its reader into a world that there are not many doors for those without TS. He helps the reader explore the humor of TS, the complexity of TS and the comradery between Touretters. This book is profoundly honest. It is a must read for those readers interested in Tourette Syndrome.
