Alumni Reading: Middlebury’s Own Benjamin Ehrlich (’09) and Devon Jersild

Benjamin Ehrlich (Middlebury, class of 2009) is the author of THE BRAIN IN SEARCH OF ITSELF (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). His work has appeared in THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2023, The Paris Review Daily, LitHub, Scientific American, Aeon, Nautilus, The Gettysburg Review, and New England Review. His first book, THE DREAMS OF SANTIAGO RAMÓN Y CAJAL was published by Oxford University Press.

About The Brain in Search of Itself:  

The first major biography of Ramon Cajal, the Nobel Prize–winning scientist who discovered neurons and transformed our understanding of the human mind… Cajal is the artistic and scientific forefather we must get to know. The Brain in Search of Itself is at once the story of how the brain as we know it came into being and a finely wrought portrait of an individual as fantastical and complex as the subject to which he devoted his life.

“Passionate and meticulous …a deeply researched, well-written and lovingly crafted biography … [Ehrlich] delivers thought-provoking metaphors, unforgettable scenes and many beautifully worded phrases.” ?Benjamin Labatut, The New York Times Book Review

Devon Jersild is a writer and psychotherapist in Weybridge, Vermont. She won an O. Henry Award for a story that appeared in the Kenyon Review, and she has written for many other publications including New England Review, Times Literary Supplement, New York Times, USA Today, and Redbook. She’s a former Associate Editor at New England Review and Associate Director of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Her book of nonfiction, Happy Hours: Alcohol in a Woman’s Life, was widely acclaimed. Luminous Bodies is her first novel.

About Luminous Bodies: 

“Jersild brilliantly fictionalizes Marie Curie’s dramatic life by imagining with verve, lyricism, and empathy the scientist’s tumultuous inner world … [This] ravishing biographical novel, set within the larger story of the fight for women’s rights and capturing the demands and thrills of science, glows with evocative psychological and societal insights.”
—Booklist

“Heartrending and intelligent, Luminous Bodies is a beautiful biographical novel about a daughter, wife, mother, lover, immigrant, and scientist who was more than the sum of her parts.”
—Foreword Reviews