The Woman Who Couldn't Wake Up - by Quinn Eastman (Hardcover)

About the Book

Despite multiple alarm clocks and powerful stimulants, an Atlanta lawyer could sleep for thirty or even fifty hours at a stretch. Quinn Eastman tells her story--and the broader story of her diagnosis, idiopathic hypersomnia.

Book Synopsis

Sleep was taking over Anna's life. Despite multiple alarm clocks and powerful stimulants, the young Atlanta lawyer could sleep for thirty or even fifty hours at a stretch. She stopped working and began losing weight because she couldn't stay awake long enough to eat. Anna's doctors didn't know how to help her until they tried an oddball drug, connected with a hunch that something produced by her body was putting her to sleep.

The Woman Who Couldn't Wake Up tells Anna's story--and the broader story of her diagnosis, idiopathic hypersomnia (IH), a shadowy sibling of narcolepsy that has emerged as a focus of sleep research and patient advocacy. Quinn Eastman explores the science around sleepiness, recounting how researchers have been searching for more than a century for the substances that tip the brain into slumber. He argues that investigation of IH could unlock new understandings of how sleep is regulated and controlled. Eastman foregrounds the experiences of people with IH, relating how publicity around Anna's successful treatment helped others form a community. He shows how a group of patients who felt neglected or dismissed united to steer research toward their little-known disorder.

Sharing emerging science and powerful stories, this book testifies to the significance of underrecognized diseases and sheds new light on how our brains function, day and night. It is essential reading for anyone interested in sleep and sleep disorders, including those affected by or seeking to treat them.

Review Quotes

In this book Eastman (a technical editor at Emory Univ. School of Medicine) has succeeded in writing a solid history of an ambiguous topic. This is a surprisingly easy read given the sheer amount of detailed information packed into 250 pages of text.-- "Choice Reviews, American Library Association (ALA)"

Eastman takes us on a fascinating journey through the hinterland of sleep and its disorders. A gripping exploration of the confusing and sometimes controversial world of the sleeping brain.--Guy Leschziner, author of The Man Who Tasted Words and The Nocturnal Brain

Everyone tells us how important sleep is to health. But what happens when no amount of sleep is enough? Quinn Eastman offers a captivating exploration of idiopathic hypersomnia, a poorly understood, but all-too-devastating, disease. With the flair of a detective novel, each page unravels the tireless efforts to develop a treatment for those who can't wake up.--Joanna Kempner, Rutgers University, author of Not Tonight

This book is a fascinating and important tour-de-force taking us deep into the world of sleepiness like never before. Quinn Eastman weaves together powerful storytelling and cutting-edge science into an engaging and enlightening read that gives voice to many people's often invisible and overlooked struggles against a mysterious undertow of sleep.--Julie Flygare, chief executive officer, Project Sleep, and author of Wide Awake and Dreaming

When it comes to sleep in our culture, we focus almost entirely on individuals who 'can't sleep'... a malady that by most accounts borders on the scientifically impossible. We share endless tips and tricks for falling asleep fast, staying asleep, and pray that one will work its magic and allow us to fall asleep quickly and stay asleep like those that we look upon as "good sleepers." But is our view of what constitutes a great sleeper and a troubled sleeper skewed? Is this the wish we want the genie to grant? In The Woman Who Couldn't Wake Up, readers get a profile of the other side of sleep medicine that is seldom discussed--excessive sleepiness, and how it is the truly sinister force when it comes to sleep medicine. Quinn Eastman takes you inside this murky world of misdiagnoses, misperceptions, and potentially life-changing experimental therapies.--W. Chris Winter, author of The Rested Child and The Sleep Solution

About the Author

Quinn Eastman is a technical editor at Emory University School of Medicine. He was trained as a biochemist, receiving a PhD from Yale University, and has worked as a journalist, covering local government and environmental issues as well as sleep research.