Review: Head Cases by Michael Paul Mason

AS A case manager who coordinates care for people with traumatic brain injuries, Michael Paul Mason has travelled around the US and to Iraq, witnessing the often bizarre and always devastating worlds they inhabit. The result is Head Cases. It reads like a book of short stories, full of tragic characters vividly rendered by Mason’s literary style: one man cannot cry, one is convinced he is dead. As things in the brain break, we glimpse how healthy brains function. More than just a book about brains, it is really about people. One wonders how Mason dares to walk around…