Louis Stanislaw has brought us an extraordinary gift: a collection of deeply moving essays from men and women sharing their personal experiences with epilepsy, one of mankind’s least understood and most daunting of challenges.

In these pages, Jonathan Magaziner shares his feelings of pain and powerlessness as he sits on an airplane and watches a man a few rows away suffer a seizure—and then be carried off to an unknown destination. Lord Charles Guthrie, the distinguished British military commander, tells us about the strength and pride of a young soldier who refuses to let his secret battle with epilepsy halt his dreams of a sterling military career. And Bill Maier tells us of his personal angels: the doctors and nurses who were finally able to halt his seizures and put an end to the chaos that was destroying his life. Crowning the collection, a young woman named Amanda Rich tells of her personal heartache and triumph, as she comes to embrace her epilepsy not as an affliction but as a gift, an opportunity to learn and grow and share with others the need for greater understanding and social acceptance for everyone with such challenges.