The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

On Biography Day in fifth grade, Jonathan dresses as Nathaniel Hawthorne and is overcome with anxiety. Meanwhile, Michael gives a confident performance as Franklin D. Roosevelt. Jonathan is a slow reader, and his factual recall is poor. By contrast, Michael has a photographic memory and can read several books simultaneously. He describes plots so engagingly that Jonathan feels as if he has read the books himself. Michael describes how the character Piggy is killed by a boulder in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. He explains that after his death, “the red stuff” left on the rock is Piggy’s brains.

One day a teenager on a dirt bike drives directly at Jonathan and his friends. Jonathan freezes and the bike throws him into the air. His leg is badly injured, and Michael runs for help.

The author explains that in the 1970s, many Americans were paranoid after political scandals such as Watergate. Mind-altering drugs had also been introduced into American society. Psychiatric hospitals used antipsychotics to treat mental illness. LSD (tested initially on prisoners and psychiatric patients by the CIA) became a common recreational drug.

Jonathan is on crutches when he starts junior high school. Michael has a girlfriend and is in honors classes for all subjects. Jonathan’s academic achievement is patchy, with a weakness in math.

Jonathan is expected to memorize a reading from the Torah for his bar mitzvah. He feels that if he fails, he is letting down his father and also his grandparents, who were murdered in the Holocaust. Facing the congregation, his mind goes blank, and he runs to the men’s room to be sick. By contrast, Michael’s bar mitzvah is a triumph. Jonathan begins to dread class presentations and fakes various medical conditions to avoid them.

Jonathan opts out when Michael begins smoking marijuana with other boys, afraid it may harm his brain. In the news, the “Son of Sam” murders cause alarm in New York, as several couples are killed. When David Berkowitz is arrested for the crimes, Jonathan’s father is horrified to discover the murderer is Jewish and briefly lived in New Rochelle. Berkowitz had a high IQ but suffered paranoid delusions, believing a black Labrador urged him to commit the crimes.

Michael tells Jonathan about the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1976). A rebellious character named McMurphy is committed to a psychiatric hospital as he refuses to conform to “a crazy culture” (51). McMurphy is drugged, given electrotherapy, and finally lobotomized. He is eventually smothered to death in a mercy killing by Chief Bromden, an Indigenous American, who escapes the institution.

The author suggests that One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest summed up many Americans’ attitudes toward mental illness in the 1970s. Psychiatric hospitals were viewed in largely negative terms, and the word “crazy” was liberally used to indicate a positive, non-conformist state of mind. At the same time, a strong cultural interest in the devil emerged. The movies The Exorcist and The Omen were released, and fears of devil worship became prevalent. Coverage of David Berkowitz’s capture fed into these concerns as the killer made several allusions to the devil.

One day, walking home from New Rochelle High School, Jonathan and Michael are targeted by a group of Black teenagers. Jonathan is punched to the ground and kicked. When the ordeal is over, Jonathan sees Michael watching from a distance, uninjured.

Jonathan’s ribs are broken, and his nose needs reconstruction. Michael’s father, Chuck, suggests finding the perpetrators and beating them with lead pipes. After his surgery, Jonathan stays off school as he has an embarrassing cast on his nose. Michael claims that he managed to push Jonathan’s attackers away and escape. He only realized that Jonathan was hurt afterward. Jonathan does not challenge the story.

Jonathan and Michael both work for the school’s newspaper, the Herald. Jonathan applies for the Telluride program—an elite summer camp. He does not tell Michael, as he fears competing against his friend in the challenging application process. When Jonathan is accepted, he feels guilty until Michael reveals he also has a place on the program.

Jonathan and Michael both want to become the Herald’s editor in chief. When Jonathan is interviewed, he says he is happy to share the role or take the less- senior job of managing editor. However, Michael insists he will only accept the top job. Jonathan is astonished when he is given the role. He is disappointed when Michael quits, as he envisioned running the paper together. Jonathan’s father is furious after an encounter with Chuck Laudor: Chuck argued that Michael deserved to be editor in chief and insisted that Jonathan stand down.

Jonathan and Michael go to separate campuses for the Telluride program. Jonathan is at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, while Michael is based at Telluride House on the Cornell campus in Ithaca, New York. When they return, Michael takes a summer job at a gift shop whose owners love him. Meanwhile, after mislabeling the beer, Jonathan loses his job at a grocery store.

When school starts, Michael continues to spend breaks in the Herald’s office despite no longer having a role there. Although the room is noisy, he often falls asleep. Michael often stays at his friend Josh Ferber’s turreted mansion, which he calls “the Gatsby House.” Josh’s mother, Jane, and father, Andy, are psychiatrists. However, Andy has left his family to follow Guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in India and now goes by the name “Bodhicitta.” Michael talks excitedly about listening to music and taking drugs with friends at the Gatsby House but never invites Jonathan.

Michael is infatuated with a girl named Jo-Ann. He does not go to the prom as Jo-Ann has agreed to partner with someone else. Jonathan and Michael get into Yale, but Michael suggests they should keep to different social circles as Jonathan is “simply too slow” (89). At around the same time, a failed assassination attempt takes place on Ronald Reagan, and John Lennon is murdered. It emerges that the men responsible are both mentally ill, unmedicated, and influenced by J. D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye.

At Yale, Jonathan lives on Old Campus, while Michael is based in a residential college. Michael confidently challenges and debates with professors, quickly establishing a reputation for eccentricity and brilliance.

Michael is involved in numerous social activities at Yale and excels in his studies despite spending entire days asleep. Jonathan majors in literature. He hates his part-time job in the dining hall and fears he may not be intelligent enough to avoid similar work in the future. Jonathan begins dating and feels he is finally experiencing the youth he missed out on at high school. Michael has a brief, intense fling with Robin, an African American student. Robin’s roommate is a shy young woman named Caroline Costello.

A circle of academics at Yale is known as “the Hermeneutic Mafia.” These literature professors are followers of the critic Jacques Derrida, focusing on deconstructing literature and demonstrating the limitations of language. However, Jonathan prefers to be taught by the more traditional professor, Harold Bloom.

Michael completes his studies after only three years at Yale. He reveals he intends to be rich and has been recruited by a Boston management consulting firm, Bain & Company. Bain’s employees receive impressive salaries in exchange for working 100-hour weeks. Michael plans to stay at Bain for 10 years and then become a writer. Jonathan notes Michael’s envy when a friend gains a scholarship to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He realizes Michael also applied for the course and was rejected for the first time.