TRUE STORY/MEMOIR: In this swift and breathtaking narrative, Susannah Cahalan tells the astonishing true story of her inexplicable descent into madness and the brilliant, lifesaving diagnosis that nearly didn’t happen. A team of doctors would spend a month trying desperately to pin down a medical explanation for what had gone wrong. Meanwhile, as the days progressed, she began to move inexorably through psychosis into catatonia and, ultimately, toward death. At the last minute,  neurologist Souhel Najjar joined her team and, with the help of a lucky, ingenious test, saved her life. He recognized the symptoms of a newly discovered autoimmune disorder in which the body attacks the brain, a disease now thought to be tied to both schizophrenia and autism, and perhaps the root of “demonic possessions” throughout history. Far more than simply a riveting read and a crackling medical mystery, Brain on Fire (Free Press, $25) is the powerful account of one woman’s struggle to recapture her identity and to rediscover herself among the fragments left behind. Using all her journalistic skills, and building from hospital records and surveillance video, interviews with family and friends, and excerpts from the deeply moving journal her father kept during her illness, Susannah pieces together the story of her “lost month” to write an unforgettable memoir about memory and identity, faith and love. 8pm