A Novel · Coming Soon
Hysteria
A failing startup founder gives herself forty-two days before she dies. Then the world keeps finding ways to be worth staying for.
Notify Me When It’s OutThe Book
A woman who decides to die and keeps finding reasons not to.
Clara is fifty-two years old, living in a borrowed San Francisco apartment, and the startup she built after nearly bleeding to death from a fibroid her doctors dismissed for seven years has just run out of money. Her company sells proprietary supplements and a protocol to help midlife women eradicate fibroids and thrive through perimenopause, something male venture capitalists of Silicon Valley have made clear they do not find fundable. She is out of time, money, and questioning her entire life purpose, and has decided that, when she personally runs out of money, she will die.
What she does not anticipate is that the world will keep finding ways to be worth staying for. A first customer who writes to say she finally feels seen. A stranger on a fog-soaked hill who tells her she has a reason to live. Bowie, her sixteen year old dog, who seems to love her no matter what.
“For every woman who has ever felt invisible and kept going anyway.”
Why Hysteria
The word hysteria comes from the Greek word for uterus, and up until 1980 it was a medical diagnosis in the DSM for any woman who complained.
The solution to a misbehaving woman was removing her uterus via a hysterectomy. Hysteria is a novel about a protagonist that literary fiction, and the world, rarely makes room for: a midlife woman who refuses to stay silent.
55M
American women currently in some stage of menopause
70%
Of women over 50 feel they are invisible
72%
Of women gaslit by healthcare professionals
The Story Behind the Story
The writing that led to this book.
Essay
Gaslighting, Hysteria & Hysterectomies
I was told my weight gain was normal; I had a 16cm fibroid that almost killed me. After 2 surgeries I rebuilt my health and life.
Essay
The Adventure of Being You
J’accepte la grande aventure d’être moi: what does life look like when you treat it as a grand adventure, in which you are the main character.
Essay
Living Your Life For You
What happens when you stop building your life around what other people expect of you, and start building it around YOU.
For readers who love
Stories about people who lose everything they built and discover, in the wreckage, something more essential than what they lost.
Hysteria will resonate with readers who loved Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Eat Pray Love, and Under the Tuscan Sun, novels about women who rebuild their lives on their own terms, in unexpected places, with more clarity than they had before everything fell apart.
About the Author
Julie Elaine Brown
Julie Elaine Brown is a four-time startup CEO and former journalist with a Master of Arts in Journalism from Northeastern University. She co-founded a precision women’s health company after nearly dying from a hemorrhaging fibroid following seven years of being dismissed by doctors, refused a hysterectomy in the emergency room, and reversed her biological age by more than thirteen years.
She writes about gaslighting, hysterectomies, perimenopause, and longevity at julieelainebrown.com. She is a four time founder CEO, whose latest company, Reve Health, used an East-meets-West approach to examine more than 107 biomarkers and guide people to health. She has advised brands including Google, Apple, Pfizer, Goldman Sachs, and Johnson and Johnson.
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Hysteria is coming.
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