While speaking about her father, Siri Hustvedt found herself a victim of the shudders. Was it a hysterical seizure or a bizarre form of panic attack? Her exploration unearths theories and stories from the annals of medical history, contemporary brain research, as well as literature and philosophy. This is a book about the mysteries of illness and the complexities of diagnosis. In THE SHAKING WOMAN Hustvedt synthesizes her personal experience into a seamless narrative that investigates the age-old dilemmas of the mental and the physical, the mind and the body and what it means to be human.