Memphian relishes writing role as second story hits the shelves

Feature profile for The Commercial Appeal

March 28, 2010

Memphian Molly Caldwell Crosby credits her career as an author in the narrative non-fiction genre to her time as a researcher for writers at National Geographic magazine and a “morbid attraction to tragic stories.”

“It (narrative non-fiction) tends to be a lot of hurricanes and earthquakes and great fires,” she said, “not exactly uplifting.”

Crosby’s second book, “Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic that Remains One of Medicine’s Greatest Mysteries” (Berkley Books, $24.95), was released earlier this month. It’s the story of the sleeping sickness, or encephalitis lethargica, of the early 1900s, an epidemic that rode in on the wave of the Spanish flu outbreak of the time.

Falling into long sleeps for weeks or months, the victims totaled 5 million, with nearly a third of them dying. The disease would later be the focus for Oliver Sacks’ book “Awakenings” and the movie of the same name.

Crosby, 37, grew up in Dallas and moved to Memphis to attend Rhodes College, where she graduated in 1995 with a degree in English with an emphasis in creative writing … (read more)