About the world's first LOBOTOMIST, Walter Freeman

-- Jack El-Hai will be appearing at the Stanford Professional Store in downtown Palo Alto. Come meet the man, get a book signed, and learn about one of America's spookiest figures. --

"Lobotomist: Biography of Walter Freeman"

by Jack El-Hai

The lobotomy is probably the most controversial and infamous medical procedure in history. Little is widely known about Walter Freeman, the man who brought its practice to America, and a man that many call a monster. However, El-Hai has assembled a portrait in "The Lobotomist" much different from Freeman's image today as an atrocious and even criminal physician -- that of a brilliant doctor, determined to develop a treatment for seemingly hopeless mental patients, whose many flaws drove him to continue using a promising procedure much longer than he should have.

The Lobotomist is the result of El-Hai's examination of thousands of letters, reports, and medical records among Freeman's papers at George Washington University, as well as interviews with Freeman's three living children.