It's our anniversary
And an update
This is a huge thank you.
With your help, Pathological made the USA TODAY bestseller list one year ago.
It’s incredibly rare for a backlisted book (that means a book that’s more than a year old) to make the bestseller list.
There’s no way I could have done it without you and Substack and all the opportunities this platform offers—and without my agent, Kim Witherspoon, who completely changed my life when she took me on as a client six years ago.
So many exciting things are happening. I’m now helping others use Substack to get their books into the hands of readers—as Fortier PR’s Substack consultant; with the trainings I do for literary agencies, PR firms, and publishing houses; and in a course I created for authors.
I’m also feeling my way through what my next book will be and writing poems. And, of course, running my company (which my right hand Mary Hickman and I refer to as The Empire) and Substack Writers at Work.
Even if you didn’t purchase or gift a book, having you here keeps me going. Thank you.
More good things to come,
Sarah
In this stunning, national bestselling debut—both a memoir and a work of investigative journalism—author and former advisory editor at The Paris Review Sarah Fay explores the ways we pathologize human experienc
es. With exquisite detail and a precise presentation of fact, she digs up her own life at the root to finally ask, Is a diagnosis a lifeline or a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Powerful, mesmerizing, and unputdownable, Pathological sits alongside the other brave and inspiring classics of our time that explore a more intelligent, forgiving, and nuanced approach to human suffering.
I learned about this wonderful memoir on Substack last summer. I read it immediately. It was a revelation. I passed my copy along to others to read. I have gifted it to people and I have told many people about it. It is very much a cautionary tale for our times – a story about how easy it is for a young woman to get medicalized by a well-meaning, but ultimately ineffective and often misguided or confused medical and therapeutic establishment. Once that has happened, one is in something like a clinical self-fulfilling prophecy – the doctors see what they have been primed to see, and the drugs that they prescribe often produce the problems that they then attribute to the patient, who then must be treated ever more aggressively, and so on. The mental health of women and girls is a real issue in our moment and has been for a very, very long time. It's real and it has to be taken seriously. What must also be taken seriously is that sometimes the treatment is not only worse than the symptom, but actually creates what then gets labeled as disease.
Congratulations, Sarah! So very happy for you. “Pathological” is a life-changing book. Thank you for writing it. It deserves the acclaim and continuing sales. Looking forward to seeing your new work. Enjoy the limelight — and the cookies!