An engaging memoir about one writer’s struggle with grief, mental illness, identity—and one all-consuming, life-wrecking obsession

Growing up, Jaime Weinman loved pop culture, but he was never a superhero nerd. He preferred literature and opera, musicals and sitcoms, all loves he shared with his father, one of the most important figures in his life. As an adult, Weinman parlayed his love of pop culture into a career as an arts and entertainment writer. Things weren’t always great—he had persistent anxiety and depression, he couldn’t find a nice Jewish girl to marry and he was often lonely—but, like many of us, he was managing.

But when his father dies, Weinman experiences The Crash. For the first time in his life, pop culture offers neither relief nor escape. One day, in hopes that he’ll be able to finish just one book (one episode! one record! one anything!), he picks up a superhero comic. Soon, Weinman is obsessed—and with one character in particular. In time, the thing that first helped him cope becomes the thing that harms him most. He drains his savings, eventually loses his job, then his condo, then himself.

Deeply compelling and darkly funny, Disassembled is about pop culture and fandom, mental health and grief, and what happens when our fictional worlds become more real than what’s in front of us.