1980s Books if They Were Written About Migraines

Will their aching heads ever find peace? Only their hearts will know.

Kate Anderson
3 min readJun 30, 2022
Background Image by ROB5N from Pixabay.

*co-written with Alison Sanders*

Love in the Time of a Pre-Migraine Aura, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Florentino and Fermina fall in love at a young age, but Fermina cannot wed him due to her lengthy, terrifying pre-migraine aura. Her aura consists of many visual disturbances and hallucinations over the course of 50 years, during which time Florentino has affairs with 622 other women.

The Magnesium Lover, by Marguerite Duras

This is the story of a young French woman who has a tumultuous affair with Magnesium L-Threonate, a pain-soothing elixir that penetrates her blood-brain barrier to reduce brain fog and enhance cognitive function.

Bright Lights, Big Migraine, by Jay McInerny

A 24-year-old yuppie writer follows his fashion model girlfriend to New York City, where his migraine-induced light sensitivity is flared each night by lampposts, car headlights, and the flashing neon signage of Times Square. His neurological disease, exacerbated by fast-paced city living, leads his girlfriend to run away with another man in Paris and drives him into a downward spiral, until he is hidden away in a dark…

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