Michael Thomas Publishes 'The Broken King' After 20 Years, Detailing Breakdown and Autism
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Jul 30
Michael Thomas Publishes 'The Broken King' After 20 Years, Detailing Breakdown and Autism
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Jul 30
Summary
Twenty years after his award-winning 2006 debut, Michael Thomas has returned with The Broken King, a memoir that explains why no follow-up arrived after Man Gone Down.
Thomas says acclaim for the first novel fed a "crippling break" in 2007: book-tour pressure, insomnia and mood swings culminated in hallucinations and a psychiatric hospitalization.
The memoir traces that collapse through a wider history of poverty, parental abandonment, racism, alcoholism and sexual violence, while also recounting his later diagnosis of level 1 autism after childhood labels including dyslexia and ADHD.
Now 58 and still teaching at Hunter College, Thomas says he feels more stable facing renewed attention, even as the book revisits divorce, his mother's 2020 Covid death and the strain on his children.