Lecture: Mary Pilon and Kevin Hall Discuss ‘The Kevin Show’

Join Mary Pilon and Kevin Hall, the author and subject of The Kevin Show: An Olympic Athlete’s Battle With Mental Illness, for a discussion of their book and Hall’s experience with a unique delusion.

Meet Kevin Hall: brother, son, husband, father, and Olympic sailor. Hall has an Ivy League degree, a winning smile, and throughout his adult life, he has been engaged in an ongoing battle with a person who doesn’t exist to anyone but him: the Director.

Hall 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 Hall 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. Author Mary Pilon reveals the many-sided struggle—of Hall, 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.

Sponsored by the History and Psychology programs of the Social Sciences Department, Counseling Services, and the NEH working group Teaching Labor History to Art and Design Students.

This event is open to the public.