Concussion

by Jeanne Marie Laskas

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The riveting, unlikely story of Dr. Bennet Omalu, the pathologist who first identified CTE in professional football players, a discovery that challenges the existence of America’s favorite sport and puts Omalu in the crosshairs of football’s most powerful corporation: the NFL
 
Now a major motion picture starring Will Smith
 
Jeanne Marie Laskas first met the young forensic pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu in 2009, while reporting a story for GQ that would go on to inspire the movie Concussion. Omalu told her about a day in September 2002, when, in a dingy morgue in downtown Pittsburgh, he picked up a scalpel and made a discovery that would rattle America in ways he’d never intended. Omalu was new to America, chasing the dream, a deeply spiritual man escaping the wounds of civil war in Nigeria. The body on the slab in front of him belonged to a fifty-year-old named Mike Webster, aka “Iron Mike,” a Hall of Fame center for the Pittsburgh Steelers, one of the greatest ever to play the game. After retiring in 1990, Webster had suffered a dizzyingly steep decline. Toward the end of his life, he was living out of his van, tasering himself to relieve his chronic pain, and fixing his rotting teeth with Super Glue. How did this happen?, Omalu asked himself. How did a young man like Mike Webster end up like this? The search for answers would change Omalu’s life forever and put him in the crosshairs of one of the most powerful corporations in America: the National Football League. What Omalu discovered in Webster’s brain—proof that Iron Mike’s mental deterioration was no accident but a disease caused by blows to the head that could affect everyone playing the game—was the one truth the NFL wanted to ignore.
 
Taut, gripping, and gorgeously told, Concussion is the stirring story of one unlikely man’s decision to stand up to a multibillion-dollar colossus, and to tell the world the truth.
 
Praise for Concussion
 
“A gripping medical mystery and a dazzling portrait of the young scientist no one wanted to listen to . . . a fabulous, essential read.”—Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

“The story of Dr. Bennet Omalu’s battle against the NFL is classic David and Goliath stuff, and Jeanne Marie Laskas—one of my favorite writers on earth—makes it as exciting as any great courtroom or gridiron drama. A riveting, powerful human tale—and a master class on how to tell a story.”—Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit
 
“Bennet Omalu forced football to reckon with head trauma. The NFL doesn’t want you to hear his story, but Jeanne Marie Laskas makes it unforgettable. This book is gripping, eye-opening, and full of heart.”—Emily Bazelon, author of Sticks and Stones

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780812987577
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/24/2015
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	210,636
Product dimensions:	5.17(w) x 7.99(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

Jeanne Marie Laskas is the author of seven books, including Concussion, Hidden America, and The Exact Same Moon. Her writing has appeared in GQ, Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, O: The Oprah Magazine, and many other publications. Laskas serves as director of The Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh, where she teaches creative writing, and she lives on a horse farm in Pennsylvania with her husband and two children.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Obscurity 3

Chapter 2 Running 17

Chapter 3 Spiral 39

Chapter 4 America 52

Chapter 5 Fancy 68

Chapter 6 The Morgue 86

Chapter 7 Discovery 107

Chapter 8 Belonging 130

Chapter 9 Attack 149

Chapter 10 Scramble 171

Chapter 11 Oddball 187

Chapter 12 Comfort Zone 204

Chapter 13 Word 228

Chapter 14 Daddy 247

Acknowledgments 267

Author's Note 271

Editorial Reviews

10/19/2015
Part medical whodunit and part biography, this arresting account by Laska (Hidden America) introduces Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist who reluctantly unravels a medical threat that challenges the future of the National Football League. In 2002, Omalu, a forensic neuropathologist working for the Allegheny County coroner’s office, performs an autopsy on former NFL great Mike Webster, who exhibited bizarre behavior and dementia, and concludes that the cause was chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a debilitating brain disease, caused by concussions sustained during football games. Omalu stirs up a hornet’s nest when he testifies about these conclusions in court. At times, Laskas switches the focus to the Nigerian doctor’s overly romanticized views of America or his painful battle with depression, but the book mostly covers his detailed legal wrangling with the NFL monopoly over long-term CTE symptoms and acceptable compensation. The deck is stacked again against any football player taking savage hits in the game, even with the protective helmet, according to Omalu: “On the surface is nothing, but you open the skull and the brain is mush.” Some NFL officials and gridiron vets think the CTE legal aftermath has weakened football’s muscular appeal, but Laskas expertly makes the case for valuing the health of football players over the image of the league, justifying the large cash settlement for damage. This important book is based on a 2009 article Laskas wrote for GQ, as is a forthcoming film. Agent: Elyse Cheney, Elyse Cheney Literary. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Advance praise for Concussion
 
“A gripping medical mystery and a dazzling portrait of the young scientist no one wanted to listen to . . . a fabulous, essential read.”—Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

“The story of Dr. Bennet Omalu’s battle against the NFL is classic David and Goliath stuff, and Jeanne Marie Laskas—one of my favorite writers on earth—makes it as exciting as any great courtroom or gridiron drama. A riveting, powerful human tale—and a master class on how to tell a story.”—Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit
 
“Bennet Omalu forced football to reckon with head trauma. The NFL doesn’t want you to hear his story, but Jeanne Marie Laskas makes it unforgettable. This book is gripping, eye-opening, and full of heart.”—Emily Bazelon, author of Sticks and Stones

From the Publisher

10/15/2015
Laskas first wrote about Pittsburgh-based forensic pathologist Bennet Omalu in a 2009 GQ article, and here has expanded the story of Omalu's battle with the NFL over football-related brain injuries. Omalu discovered a disease he named Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) in 2002, while studying the brain of deceased Hall of Famer Mike Webster. Laskas tells Omalu's life story on a personal basis, even incorporating "passages of introspection" by Omalu to flesh out the re-created scenes for dramatic effect. The author draws a parallel between the governmental corruption that drove Omalu from his native Nigeria to the NFL's response to his discovery; unfortunately, she gives a pass to the grandstanders in the U.S. Congress trying to use the situation to personal political advantage. Although the NFL has attempted to belittle Omalu's work, his publication record in scientific journals gives him clear provenance and authority on the issue. The extent of the league's complicity and prior knowledge of CTE will continue to be studied by lawyers, while other factors potentially related to CTE will be examined by medical researchers in this ongoing story. VERDICT This book spins a provocative tale that is somewhat marred by an overemphasis on peripheral issues related to the trial of Omalu's boss Cyril Wecht, yet it will attract a large audience owing to the upcoming film Concussion starring Will Smith.

Library Journal

2015-09-15
A maddening, well-constructed tale of medical discovery and corporate coverup, set in morgues, laboratories, courtrooms, and football fields. Nigeria-born Bennet Omalu is perhaps an unlikely hero, a medical doctor board-certified in four areas of pathology, "anatomic, clinical, forensic, and neuropathology," and a well-rounded specialist in death. When his boss, celebrity examiner Cyril Wecht ("in the autopsy business, Wecht was a rock star"), got into trouble for various specimens of publicity-hound overreach, Omalu was there to offer patient, stoical support. The student did not surpass the teacher in flashiness, but Omalu was a rock star all his own in studying the brain to determine a cause of death. Laskas' (Creative Writing/Univ. of Pittsburgh; Hidden America, 2012, etc.) main topic is the horrific injuries wrought to the brains and bodies of football players on the field. Omalu's study of the unfortunate brain of Pittsburgh Steeler Mike Webster, who died in 2002 at 50 of a supposed heart attack, brought new attention to the trauma of concussion. Laskas trades in sportwriter-ese, all staccato delivery full of tough guy-isms and sports clichés: "He had played for fifteen seasons, a warrior's warrior; he played in more games—two hundred twenty—than any other player in Steelers history. Undersized, tough, a big, burly white guy—a Pittsburgh kind of guy—the heart of the best team in history." A little of that goes a long way, but Laskas, a Pittsburgher who first wrote of Omalu and his studies in a story in GQ, does sturdy work in keeping up with a grim story that the NFL most definitely did not want to see aired—not in Omalu's professional publications in medical journals, nor, reportedly, on the big screen in the Will Smith vehicle based on this book. Effectively sobering. Suffice it to say that Pop Warner parents will want to armor their kids from head to toe upon reading it.

Kirkus Reviews