The Kevin Show: An Olympic Athlete’s Battle with Mental Illness
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Overview
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Monopolists, the “fascinating” (People) story of Olympian Kevin Hall and the syndrome that makes him believe he stars in a television show of his life.
Meet Kevin Hall: brother, son, husband, father, and Olympic sailor. Kevin has an Ivy League degree, a winning smile, and throughout his adult life, he has been engaged in an ongoing battle with a person that doesn’t exist to anyone but him: the Director. In the tradition of Kay Redfield Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind, journalist and NYT bestselling author Mary Pilon’s The Kevin Show reveals the many-sided struggle--of Kevin, his family, and the medical profession--to understand and treat a psychiatric disorder whose euphoric highs and creative ties to pop culture have become inextricable from Kevin’s experience of himself.
Kevin suffers from what doctors are beginning to call the “Truman Show” delusion, a form of bipolar disorder named for the 1998 movie in which the main character realizes he is the star of a reality TV show. When the Director commands Kevin to do things, the results often lead to handcuffs, hospitalization, or both. Once he nearly drove a car into Boston Harbor. His girlfriend, now wife, was in the passenger seat.
Interweaving Kevin’s perspective--including excerpts from his journals and sketches--with police reports, medical records, and interviews with those who were present at key moments in his life, The Kevin Show is a bracing, suspenseful, and eye-opening view of the role that mental health plays in a seemingly ordinary life.
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Monopolists, the “fascinating” (People) story of Olympian Kevin Hall and the syndrome that makes him believe he stars in a television show of his life.
Journalism Star and Media Favorite: Named one of Forbes Magazine’s 30 Under 30 in 2011, Pilon has been a staff reporter for the NYT and Wall Street Journal, and writer for The New Yorker, ESPN’s Grantland, Fast Company, Politico, Deadspin, and more, with the contacts to match. The Monopolists was a NYT bestseller and received rave reviews and praise from Erik Larsen, Simon Winchester, Stefan Fatsis; it’s currently in development for a film.
Narrative Nonfiction at its Most Dynamic: Pilon renders the high-stakes drama that is Kevin’s everyday life with compassion, but also with the narrative tools of psychological thrillers. The suspense is all the more gripping for having been drawn from real life.
Inside View of Mental Illness: In the tradition of Kay Redfield Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind and Oliver Sacks’s The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Kevin’s story--which moves between the perspectives of patient and healers--will enlighten anyone interested in what it means to live with a psychiatric disorder.
Prevalence of Bipolar: Approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S.-43.8 million-experience mental illness in a given year, including 6 million with bipolar disorder (NIMH).
Absorbing and empathetic . . . Pilon is a paragon of dogged research. She’s best in reconstructing (via hundreds of hours of interviews) the intertwined life struggles of Hall, his steadfast sweetheart and eventual wife, his vexed parents and some denizens of the competitive sailing world. Her attempts to reach Hall’s “inner world” display levels of empathy that touch the heart.
As [The Kevin Show] journeys through Hall’s illness, it also forces readers to consider the ‘sanity’ of their own relationship to a media-saturated world . . . Grippingly provocative reading.
Pilon’s compelling portrait of a remarkable young man and the challenges he faces as a cancer survivor, Olympic athlete, and bipolar patient underscores all the difficulties involved, especially in treating mental illness, and offers insights into the effects it has on patients and their families.
A captivating narrative that details the many challenges Hall has faced as a result of his disorder . . . Sharp and compelling, this highly entertaining account will reframe the way you see mental health in everyday life.
Kevin Hall battles a rare delusion. He often believes he’s starring in his own reality show. Despite that, he’s a husband, dad, and Olympic sailor. How does that work? Fascinating.
Draws attention to the toll of mental illness on individuals and their families.
[A] nonfiction standout . . . With impressive detail and sensitivity, journalist Mary Pilon, captures the highs and lows of Kevin’s life with mental illness.
Pilon’s empathetic approach and Hall’s precise expression of his unique inner world make this an important biographical study for mental health collections, sports fans, and readers interested in the increasingly blurry line between fantasy and reality.
Spellbinding. Brilliant. A true-life psychological thriller that captures the ongoing drama of a major mental illness as it unfolds while also recognizing its complexity and majesty.
- Title: The Kevin Show: An Olympic Athlete’s Battle with Mental Illness
- Author: Mary Pilon
- Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
- Print Publication Date: 2018
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 336
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781632866844, 9781632866820, 163286682X, 1632866846
- Resource ID: LLS:9781632866844
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T15:28:16Z
Mary Pilon is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Monopolists, the acclaimed history of the board game Monopoly. A regular contributor to The New Yorker, Esquire, Fast Company, MSNBC, Vice, and Politico, Pilon has also worked as a staff reporter at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and was a producer for NBC Sports at the 2016 Olympics. She lives in Brooklyn. Visit her website at marypilon.com and follow her on Twitter at @marypilon.