Oliver Sacks

In his memoir On the Move, written in the last years of his life, Oliver Sacks tells of a defining moment in his youth. His father, having noticed his adolescent son’s lack of apparent interest in girls, asked if he preferred boys. Oliver admitted that he did, but begged his father to keep the matter secret from his mother, who he thought would not cope with the news. The following day, however, his mother appeared with a “face of thunder” and called him an “abomination,” saying she wished he had never been born. These were words that struck deep, contributing to an enduring sexual shame, a sense of inner disfigurement that haunted him throughout his life, and must surely have played a role in his lifelong fascination with, and compassion for, people afflicted by bizarre and stigmatising conditions.

It was not just his sexuality that set him apart. He was an anomaly in many respects, a combination of apparent contradictions. Who expects a Jew in New York to speak with an upper-crust English accent?