Now that neurologists and psychiatrists tend to describe diseases rather than the case histories of individual patients, novelists have stepped in to fill the void. Many fictional characters these days suffer from syndromes and disorders, giving voice to the patient's perspective, often convincingly. In "Motherless Brooklyn," Jonathan Lethem introduces us to Lionel Essrog, also known as Freakshow, who is afflicted with a fierce case of Tourette syndrome. The thing is, he's a private eye, a challenging profession even without the twitching, barking and verbal tics that threaten to give him away. Lethem draws you inside a hectic Tourette mind, where the same compulsive urge to restore order also helps the detective to get to the bottom of a murder case.  An idyllic opening scene in the English countryside quickly turns terrifying: Gusting winds drag a helium-filled balloon across fields with a small boy still in the basket, and five onlookers race to his aid. As they battle to hang on to the ropes in the roaring wind, Joe Rose—a science writer who had been picnicking with his wife—happens to meet the eye of Jed Parry, one of the rescuing strangers. In that instant, Jed is convinced that he and Joe are meant for each other. As Jed begins to stalk this man he'd never met before, we learn that Jed suffers from Clérambault's syndrome, the delusion that someone is secretly in love with you. Those affected by this condition—the cause of which is still unclear—may resort to ever more desperate measures to be with the object of their affection. Jed is no exception—and before long Joe is in mortal danger.  Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2006  Hospitalized with severe brain damage after a car accident, Mark Schluter is being nursed by his older sister, Karin, his only close relative. But as Mark's health improves, he insists that Karin is an imposter. It soon becomes clear that he is suffering from Capgras syndrome, a condition—first described, in 1923, by the French psychiatrist Joseph Capgras—in which the patient believes that his loved ones have been replaced by doubles. Naturally, Karin tries to prove to Mark that she really is his sister. But her efforts only feed his suspicions: Clearly this fake Karin has extorted intimate information from his sister—just how many people are involved in the plot? Mark's neurologist explains to Karin the prevailing view on Capgras syndrome: "The part of his brain that recognizes faces is intact. So is his memory. But the part that processes emotional association has somehow disconnected from them." Novelist Richard Powers shows with remarkable insight and compassion just how devastating the effects can be.  Facing false accusations of having killed someone is hard enough, but in "Suspect" clinical psychologist Joe O'Loughlin has an added problem: a recent diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. Practicing in London—the city where doctor James Parkinson published his essay on the "shaking palsy" in 1817— O'Loughlin notices that the symptoms are already interfering with his work. "Why are you staring at me?" a patient asks, misreading his unresponsive and expressionless "Parkinson's mask." There is plenty of suspense as O'Loughlin, the first-person narrator, tries to fend off allegations that he murdered a female patient. But there is also an ominous lack of mystery: O'Louglin, the clinician, knows too well that his disease is incurable.  After the death of his wife, Elizabeth, from early-onset Alzheimer's, the mathematics prodigy and watchmaker Robert Garrett decides to build a perfectly accurate timepiece as a memorial to her. Novelist Christopher Wilkins sets up a grim but moving contrast: As Garrett works for five years on a piece of machinery that is the epitome of balance and precision, he is reminded, with a terrible clarity, of the disease that eroded his wife's memory. More than a century after the Frankfurt neuropathologist Alois Alzheimer summarized the plight of his patient Auguste D. as "an intense disorientation in time and place," the disease remains incurable and the emotional wreckage—like that of the watchmaker—all too common.  —Mr. Draaisma, the author of "Disturbances of the Mind," teaches the theory and history of psychology at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
Psychologist Douwe Draaisma on Jonathan Lethem's 'Motherless Brooklyn,' Ian McEwan's 'Enduring Love,' Richard Powers's 'The Echo Maker,' Michael Robotham's 'Suspect' and Christopher Wilkins's 'The Horizontal Instrument'