Mirror Boy

16-year-old Jason Rofeor has been locked out of his house, naked, again—by his mother. Mirror Boy is a coming-of-age story of a young man desperately seeking a father figure—having lost his own father to divorce years before—while living alone in an abandoned doctor's office with his wild, sexually prolific and emotionally unstable mother and her revolving door of unsavory men. Minutes become hours of blemish-hunting in front of their sole rusty-edged bathroom mirror, where a compulsion evolves into full blown dissociative fantasy, involving the conjuring of a solid male role model into his life. After his long-idealized dermatologist, physician-scientist Dr. Milton Greenblatt begins to mentor his highly driven and eager new protégé, it emerges he has secrets of his own; and as Jason settles more deeply into the intelligence of his unconscious mind, he self-protectively begins to question the doctor and other men he has implicitly trusted. "e;Mirror Boy offers an unprecedented, deeply empathic exploration of what it means to grow up under the shadow of parental mental illness. Due to its unflinching narrative voice and rare psychological sensitivity, this coming-of-age novel fills a longstanding void in the literature for children of parents with psychiatric disorders—a group often marginalized, misunderstood, or silenced. At once a compelling read and a revelation, it provides a language, a mirror, and most importantly, hope."e; — Dr. Christian  Kloss, sociologist and author of As If Nothing Happened: Living and Grieving as an Adult Child of Mentally Ill Parents"e;Mirror Boy is a fascinating romp of a ride, visceral in its emotions and imagery and crafted of relatable characters caught in spellbinding situations. The reader sympathizes deeply with the troubled young protagonist and champions his evolution. Spiegel is a skilled storyteller with a gift for deceptive accessibility, seamlessly melding the imagination with straightforward syntax. Mirror Boy feeds a person's desire to be a bona fide reader."e; — Stephen Mosher, entertainment journalist for BroadwayWorld and author of The Sweater Book"e;Mirror Boy explores the messy experience of growing up before we fully understand ourselves —when attraction, shame, and our emerging sense of masculinity are raw and confusing. Emotionally honest in its portrayal of trauma and resilience, the novel is a beautiful reminder that our deepest wounds often become portals to our greatest self-understanding and, ultimately, transcendence."e; — Robert Brooks Cohen, life coach, writer for Law & Order: SVU, and author of Bisexual Married Men: Stories of Relationships, Acceptance & Authenticity"e;Mirror Boy is the quintessential bildungsroman for our era. It follows the trials of a young man trying to find meaning—and a reason to live—in a world shattered by the divorce of his parents, one riddled with sharklike appetites and the other with trauma-laden indifference. This masterpiece of psychological fiction inspires tremendous confidence in youth's capacity for personal transformation. I couldn't put it down."e; — Florian Birkmayer, MD, life coach, psychiatrist, and cofounder of AromaGnosis"e;Jeremy Spiegel gives the reader an unwavering sense of hope in our ability to heal from intimately traumatic and painful early influences, along with the distortion of who we become in response to them, as he guides us through one young man's journey to a healed, truer self."e; — Anthony Ferraioli, MD, psychiatrist and author of Cobwebs and Ugly Wallpaper