Melanie Thernstrom's "The Pain Chronicles" explores chronic pain

A new book by Melanie Thernstrom ’87 explores chronic pain, in the author's own life, across societies, and through history.

A new book by Melanie Thernstrom ’87 was reviewed in the New York Times and the Boston Globe last week. Thernstrom's The Pain Chronicles: Cures, Myths, Mysteries, Prayers, Diaries, Brain Scans, Healing, and the Science of Suffering is part memoir, part medical-historical exploration, and both reviewers give it a thumbs-up.

Thernstrom was driven to explore the subject of chronic pain—which affects an estimated 70 million Americans—because she herself "suffers from an arthritic condition that ranges from irritating to incapacitating," Helen Epstein of the Times writes. The book examines how the medical community has approached pain through history; how it is viewed in different cultures; and various approaches to treating it, from neurobiology to acupuncture. In the Globe, Alec Solomita writes that Thernstrom's voice is what pulls readers along:

...it is Thernstrom's personal narrative that keeps the reader turning pages into the night. Told through the haze of suffering and remarkable in its candor, Thernstrom's story is moving, but also puzzling, frustrating, and occasionally enraging....It takes her at least two years to get an MRI and find out why she's in pain. She doesn't even tell her boyfriend (one of a few startlingly callous men she is drawn to) for a year and a half.

Epstein is also won over by Thernstrom's voice:

I cheered as she disentangled romantic from physical pain and found a caring partner. I was dismayed to discover that she found no remedy and that, for the time being, she and millions of others will continue to suffer from chronic pain.

Thernstrom is also the author of Halfway Heaven: Diary of a Harvard Murder.

You might also like

Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival

Without Christopher Marlowe, there might not have been a Bard.

Bringing Korean Stories to Life

Composer Julia Riew writes the musicals she needed to see.

Being Undocumented in America

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s writing aims to challenge assumptions. 

Most popular

Trump Administration Unveils New Attacks on Harvard

Government tightens financial oversight of Harvard, threatens to pull student aid.

Harvard art historian Jennifer Roberts teaches the value of immersive attention

Teaching students the value of deceleration and immersive attention

The Harvard Professor Who Quantified Democracy

Erica Chenoweth’s data shows how—and when—authoritarians fall.

Explore More From Current Issue

Two women in traditional kimonos, one lighting a cigarette, in a scene from Apart from You.

Harvard Film Archive Spotlights Japanese Director Mikio Naruse

A retrospective of the filmmaker’s works, from Floating Clouds to Flowing

Man in gray sweater standing in hallway with colorful abstract art on wall.

How Do Single-Celled Organisms Learn and Remember

A Harvard neuroscientist’s quest to model memory in single-celled organisms

Man, standing in small group of people outside the courthouse, holding a sign that reads "HANDS OFF HARVARD" in red letters

Harvard’s Summer in Court

What Columbia’s settlement means for the University