How long does it take to read My Lobotomy?
Howard Dully, Charles Fleming
My Lobotomy by Howard Dully, Charles Fleming takes about 5 hours 16 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 5 hours 16 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1998. 287 pages, about 78,925 words.
11 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 8 hours 46 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 5 hours 16 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 17 minutes |
The page count is the median across 17 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
At twelve, Howard Dully was guilty of the same crimes as other boys his age: he was moody and messy, rambunctious with his brothers, contrary just to prove a point, and perpetually at odds with his parents. Yet somehow, this normal boy became one of the youngest people on whom Dr. Walter Freeman performed his barbaric transorbital--or ice pick--lobotomy.Abandoned by his family within a year of the surgery, Howard spent his teen years in mental institutions, his twenties in jail, and his thirties in a bottle. It wasn't until he was in his forties that Howard began to pull his life together. But even as he began to live the "normal" life he had been denied, Howard struggled with one question: Why?"October 8, 1960. I gather that Mrs. Dully is perpetually talking, admonishing, correcting, and getting worked up into a spasm, whereas her husband is impatient, explosive, rather brutal, won't let the boy speak for himself, and calls him numbskull, dimwit, and other uncomplimentary names."There were only three people who would know the truth: Freeman, the man who performed the procedure; Lou, his cold and demanding stepmother who brought Howard to the doctor's attention; and his father, Rodney. Of the three, only Rodney, the man who hadn't intervened on his son's behalf, was still living. Time was running out. Stable and happy for the first time in decades, Howard began to search for answers. "December 3, 1960. Mr. and Mrs. Dully have apparently decided to have Howard operated on. I suggested [they] not tell Howard anything about it."Through his research, Howard met other lobotomy patients and their families, talked with one of Freeman's sons about his father's controversial life's work, and confronted Rodney about his complicity. And, in the archive where the doctor's files are stored, he finally came face to face with the truth.Revealing what happened to a child no one--not his father, not the medical community, not the state--was willing to protect, My Lobotomy exposes a…
Subjects: Biography, Biography & Autobiography, Frontal lobotomy, Nonfiction, Patient, Patients
