Extraordinary Means

The TB sanatorium, despite providing an ideal framework for a coming-of-age story, rarely surfaced in literature and was nowhere to be found in young adult fiction. But then, YA novels suffer from an absence of medical narrative in general. Adults have far more access to stories told through and about illness, both as fiction and nonfiction. Teenagers have only a handful of options that humanize the illness experience, and so, as a student of medicine and an avid reader of young adult novels, I set out to fix that.

I began to consider the journey into the land of illness as a metaphor, akin to Dante’s Inferno or Gulliver’s Travels. These days, that journey is more frequently represented by mental illness rather than physical: a patient is sent into confinement and, once away, enters a duplicate world with special rules. Only after they have been removed from their daily routine can they break free of its constraints and be cured, both metaphorically and medically, of what ails them.

I started to imagine an outbreak of a totally drug-resistant form of TB, not in the emerging world, but in the towns and cities of present-day America. I wondered what would happen if people fell ill with a long-term, contagious illness that modern medicine had no ability to treat. And then I wondered how a teenager would be transformed by the experience of moving from the institution of a school to the institution of a medical facility. TB is a disease of the young, after all. I began to invent a sanatorium for teens, borrowing elements from the open-air schools and from the private, spa-like sanatorium depicted in Ma

What in Extraordinary Means is fact, and what is fiction? The name Latham House is borrowed from Dr. Arthur Latham, a prominent English physician who published manuals for the treatment of TB at the begi

Lane and Sadie are both characters who struggle with the question of what exactly counts as living one’s life. For each of them, their TB symbolizes a deeper issue. Lane arrives at Latham House so exhausted from his rigorous course of studies that he has become literally consumed by it. Sadie has internalized all her fears and, instead of taking action, has become afraid of living. The story in this book is not a story of what it means to be sick so much as a story of how it feels to be an outsider. But most important, Extraordinary Means is a story of second chances, and what it means to have hope that you’ll figure out your place in the world, and that you’ll be strong enough to get there.

Robyn Schneider, MBE

BACK ADS

DISCOVER

your next favorite read

MEET

new authors to love

WIN

free books

WATCH

the latest videos

SHARE

infographics, lists, quizzes

SIGN UP

for bookish fun & news

epicreads.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PHOTO COURTESY ROBYN SCHNEIDER

ROBYN SCHNEIDER is a writer, actor, and online personality. She is a graduate of Columbia University, where she studied creative writing, and the University of Pe

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

BOOKS BY ROBYN SCHNEIDER

The Begi