Three writers pay homage to their unlikely influences. The music of Shostakovich gave Stephen Johnson a reason for living after struggling with bipolar disorder; Alison Leslie Gold wrote her way out of alcoholism under the benign influence of Miep Gies, the woman who sheltered the Anne Frank family; and the madcap ideas of William Burroughs inspired the eminent neurologist A.J. Lees to find new treatments for Parkinson’s Disease.
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