Gayle Greene

MISSING PERSONS (U of Nevada Press, 2017) is "a fascinating foray into loss, grief, and self-identity...Greene doesn't hold back. The emotional pain she shares in these chapters is real and raw, reminiscent of Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking." Story Circle Book Reviews

http://www.gaylegreene.org/

Here's a short interview about writing the memoir:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccdjj9WnrVA&feature=youtu.be

And a blog:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insomniac/201801/mourning-without-markers

INSOMNIAC (UC Press, Little Brown in the U.K) was Amazon's #1 pick for March 2008 and a finalist for the Gregory Bateson Prize for Cultural Anthropology. The book combines personal narrative with scientific investigation; it's the first work to report on the widespread discontent of insomniacs who are tired of hearing the same-old advice and being talked down to by professionals. It asks, why has a condition that plagues so many people been so long neglected and trivialized? Many readers have written to tell me it's been helpful.

Joyce Carol Oates: "Insomniac is an impassioned work--an inspired amalgam of academic and first-hand research, memoir, analysis... a cri de coeur from a lifetime insomniac that is sure to appeal to the vast army of fellow insomniacs the world over."

Billy Collins: "The good news is that Gayle Greene's book is all you ever need to read on the subject of sleeplessness; the bad news for fellow insomniacs is that reading it--even in bed--will fail to lull you to sleep."

Francine Prose: "Insomniac is far too interesting to lull you into dreamland, but it will certainly engage and comfort you--and keep you company--during those long, dark hours that the clock ticks off until dawn."

Peter Hauri, co-author of No More Sleepless Nights: "This is a very well-researched, in-depth book on insomnia, written with much empathy and from the patient's point of view. I would recommend it to all who are plagued by this malady or who professionally try to teach it."

New England Journal of Medicine: "if you want an in-depth overview of the patients, the physicians, and the science that are part of the contemporary culture surrounding insomnia and sleep medicine, Greene's book is the best available."

People Magazine: "In search of a good night's rest, a lit professor travels the world and bones up on sleep science. Fascinating."

I'm the author of THE WOMAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH: ALICE STEWART AND THE SECRETS OF RADIATION, U of Michigan Press, a biography of a little-known British physician and epidemiologist, Alice Stewart, who discovered in the 1950s that if you x-ray pregnant women, you double the risk of a childhood cancer, and who later became guru to the anti-nuclear movement. Her discovery revolutionized medical practice: on account of it, doctors don't do fetal x-rays anymore. The book was reissued in 2017, when new information about Stewart came to light. I've also published books on Shakespeare and contemporary women writers.

I'm professor emerita, Scripps College, Claremont, California.

I have a blog, SLEEPSTARVED.ORG, for insomniacs who are looking for new ways of thinking about insomnia, who want to learn the latest in research, brainstorm about things that help and what might be done to bring this hidden malady to public awareness.