A Raw Depiction of What Panic Feels Like

This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books.

A panic attack can feel like the end of the world. In his new novel, Pan, Michael Clune writes that during such an episode, “your consciousness gets so strong it actually leaps out of your mind entirely. It starts vibrating your body. It shakes meat and bone.” My colleague Scott Stossel reviewed the book this week, writing that anxiety can make “rays of sunlight come through my eyes and get in my chest, and I feel like I’m gagging on them.” Your stomach might feel like it’s falling through the floor; your vision might blur; you might appear glassy, paralyzed by fear. Or, as in Lee Lai’s new graphic novel, Cannon, a panic attack might look like a menacing bunch of magpies piling up on furniture.

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