When Words and Science Meet - All in the Mind at the Sydney Writers' FestivalWhen Words and Science Meet - All in the Mind at the Sydney Writers' Festival
All In The Mind
Stefan Merrill Block's debut novel, The Story of Forgetting, is a clever tale about familial Alzheimer's disease. Spanning time and place, it's the surprising story of a gene, a fantasy land where memory is absent, a hunchback, and one boy's quest to understand the disease stealing his mother's mind. And, Canadian emergency physician Dr Vincent Lam takes us inside the lives of four young doctors in his compelling debut, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures. They join Natasha Mitchell in discussion from the 2008 Sydney Writers' Festival.
30:16•31 May 2008
When Fiction Meets Neuroscience and ER Drama at the Sydney Writers’ Festival
Episode Overview
- Fiction can handle inherited illness and fear of genetic fate in ways that feel emotionally truer than strict autobiography.
- Imagined spaces like Isadora give families a language for thinking about the mental absence of loved ones with Alzheimer’s.
- Medical training exposes students to powerful ethical dilemmas where decisions must be made quickly with imperfect information.
- Writing about events such as SARS can preserve experiences that healthcare workers might otherwise suppress or forget.
- Scientific detail and glossaries can fit comfortably inside literary work without overshadowing human stories.
“"Knowing that we are, in fact, just sort of like a constellation of neurological coordinates inside this three-pound lump of meat, what space is there left for something transcendently human?"”
What drives someone to seek a life without forgetting or looking away from pain? This live conversation from the 2008 Sydney Writers’ Festival brings together novelist Stefan Merrill Block, emergency physician and author Dr Vincent Lam, and host Natasha Mitchell for a sharp, funny and emotionally loaded chat about memory, medicine and how science shapes stories. Readers who like their fiction with a strong dose of neuroscience and hospital grit will feel right at home.
He openly connects the book to his own family’s history and the fear of inheriting a "very genetic form of Alzheimer’s", asking, as he puts it, "knowing that we are, in fact, just sort of like a constellation of neurological coordinates inside this three-pound lump of meat, what space is there left for something transcendently human?" Vincent, author of **Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures**, shifts the focus to four naive medical students growing into doctors, wrestling with technical expertise, messy emotions and uncomfortable moral choices.
Stefan talks about **The Story of Forgetting**, his "literary genetic saga" about familial Alzheimer’s disease, weaving together a 15-year-old science nerd, a 68-year-old hunchback, and a mythic land without memory called Isadora. You’ll hear a gripping passage about dissecting a cadaver covered in war tattoos, and another about a patient who may be poisoned or psychotic. Vincent also reflects on his frontline experience during the SARS outbreak and how writing helped "crystallise" memories many colleagues had buried.
Throughout, Natasha keeps the tone relaxed but curious, teasing out how both writers mine their own lives while insisting their stories stay fictional enough to be emotionally honest rather than simply confessional.
If you’re interested in how brains, bodies and big feelings end up on the page, or you live with the fallout of illness and want to see it handled with care and dark humour, this conversation might leave you asking: how would you tell your own story of fear, loss and hope?
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