I never write fan mail.

I do not read memoirs.

Except for the one time I did both.

I was a high school student so anxious about my future I probably resembled a bag full of nerves in a dress. Every day, I would rehash the same internal debate like a record on repeat. Did I want a career in the arts or the sciences? Humanities or maybe social work? Characteristic of my life up to this I turned to literature to help with the struggle. I combed the library searching for something, anything, that would help me find my path in life.

That’s when I found Oliver Sacks’s memoir, Uncle Tungsten.

Many readers are familiar with Sacks’s previous work detailing some of the more fascinating cases he encountered while working as a neurologist. His formidable backlist includes Awakenings which was adapted into an award-winning movie starring Robin Williams. I, however, had never even head of that body of work. I still haven’t read it. As previously mentioned, I do not read memoirs. In fact, I hardly read nonfiction at all. But something drew me to this book.

Perhaps it was the iridescent lightbulb on the cover, perhaps it was the subtitle “Memories of a Chemical Boyhood”.  Both of these things spoke to a fascination with science that bordered on the magical. I could relate. Other girls at summer camp hung posters of pretty landscapes above their beds or plastered their walls with photos of their friends and family. I had a handmade blow up the periodic table.

Turns out, the science wasn’t the only thing in Sacks’s prose I could relate to. In between Chapters with evocative titles like “Mendeleev’s Garden” Sacks discussed growing up in a Jewish household full of religion and politics, living in the shadow cast by a siblings misfortune and attending boarding school where the other children were not always kind. The details may have varied from his life to mine, but it was easy to see myself in those stories.

It did not come as a surprise when years later I learned that Sacks suffered from severe shyness as well as prosopagnosia and that his career path was not all smooth sailing. I already somehow knew these things about him. Much as Sacks describes his boyhood self experiencing kinship with the famous scientists he studied, I had come to feel a kinship with the shy boy depicted in the memoir who related to the world and those around him through science.

It was this sense of connection, of understanding, that led me to write my first and only piece of fan mail. I had no idea how to go about sending it to him but after googling I decided to mail my missive care of Sack’s publisher. I placed it in the post and hoped I wouldn’t regret it by the time it arrived at its destination. I was not entirely sure what people typically wrote in fan mail, what would be appropriate to send such a lauded and busy physician, but I wanted to thank him for writing a book that changed my life.

I must have done a decent job conveying how life altering this text was, because a few weeks later I received a reply. In fact, my ardent teen words of gratitude prompted Sacks to break one of his own rules. He intended to respond to my handwritten note with a hand-written reply of his own. He felt this was proper etiquette, however he had recently undergone rotator cuff surgery and therefore could not properly hold the pen. Therefore, he resorted to using a typewriter. He encouraged me on my journey and wished me the best in slecting a career. He did manage to sign the letter himself but asked me to forgive the uncharacteristic nature of the signature. In short, he was every bit the gentleman scientist.

That letter remained tucked in my school binder for several years, where I could look at it for inspiration when things got rough. It was a reminder that someone like myself, Jewish, shy and never quite fitting in, could indeed find their place place. I have long ago lost track of the letter but it’s content will remain in my heart forever. 

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E Broderick is a speculative fiction enthusiast. When not writing she enjoys crossword puzzles, epic games of trivial pursuit and baking. She currently lives in the U.S. but is eagerly awaiting the day a sentient spaceship offers to take her traveling around the galaxy.