On the Move summary

The next year, right after Oliver turned 18, his father decided it was time they had a talk. Having received a scholarship to Oxford University, Oliver was about to leave his family’s home in northwest London to become a premedical student. Before he left, his father wanted to discuss something that had been weighing on his mind. 

The conversation started off innocuously enough, beginning with the topic of Oliver’s allowance and other money-related matters. But then it shifted into what his father really wanted to talk about: Oliver’s lack of girlfriends – and what it meant. 

On paper, Oliver’s 20s and early 30s sound like those of the sort of high-achieving person who knows exactly what he wants to do with his life. A premed degree in physiology and biology from Oxford University. A medical degree, again from Oxford. Internships and research fellowships at various British and American hospitals and universities. It was an impressive CV. 

But truth be told, Oliver wasn’t sure what he wanted to do during this time. At a couple of points, he was torn between zoology and medicine – and even when he settled on the medical route, he still vacillated on whether he should pursue a clinical or a research career. He also doubted whether his choice of profession was really his own in the first place; both his parents were doctors, and he felt like they’d pressured him into following in their footsteps. Meanwhile, he still had a love for storytelling, and he had aspirations to become a writer. 

After graduating from Oxford, Oliver felt like he still had one last thing to do before he became a full-fledged adult. He was 22, and he still had to lose his virginity. 

The last year had been a rather dismal one. He’d stayed at Oxford to do a research project, and it hadn’t gone very well. To make a long story short, it involved an experiment with a bunch of chickens, and he ended up accidentally killing most of them. To make matters worse, his research supervisor was practically locked away in his office, totally unsupportive, and most of his friends at Oxford had left after graduating the previous year. Socially isolated and frustrated by his work, he was sinking deeper and deeper into depression. 

If you’d known Oliver during his Oxford days and then ran into him on a weekday morning in 1961, you probably wouldn’t be too surprised by his appearance. Sure, he’s older now – 28. And the backdrop of his life has changed. Wanting to avoid the British military draft and escape the oversaturated UK job market, he’s relocated to San Francisco. But he’s doing the sort of thing you’d expect him to be doing: completing an internship at Mount Zion Hospital. 

If you saw him outside of work, however, you might do a double-take. In the evenings and on the weekend, he trades his white doctor’s coat for a black leather jacket. And his name is no longer Oliver Sacks. When he’s on the open road, riding atop his newly purchased Norton Atlas motorcycle, his biker buddies just call him Wolf – his badass middle name.  

One evening, while living in their shared studio apartment near Muscle Beach, Oliver and Mel were having one of their routine massage sessions together. Mel was lying on the bed, facedown and naked. Oliver was sitting astride him, stripped down to his athletic shorts and rubbing oil onto Mel’s silky smooth back. They’d done this many times before, and it was so erotically charged that it would usually bring Oliver to the brink of orgasm. But there he always managed to stop himself, right in the nick of time.

On this fateful occasion, however, his excitement carried him past the point of no return. He orgasmed, and the semen landed on Mel’s back. Mel stiffened, got up silently, went to the shower, and refused to speak to Oliver for the rest of the day. The next morning, he announced he was moving out. 

Two months later, Oliver was sitting in a New York City cafe, stirring his cup of coffee, when all of a sudden the beverage began turning colors – first green, then purple. He looked up in alarm and saw a customer paying his bill at the counter. But something was wrong with the man. On top of his neck, there was a giant head shaped like an elephant seal’s. 

In a state of panic, Oliver ran out into the street and got onto a bus. Once inside, his terror only increased; all of the passengers had smooth white heads shaped like enormous eggs, and their eyes were huge and multifaceted, like the eyes of an insect. 

By December, 1965, Oliver’s drug habit was causing him to miss work and lose weight at an alarming rate. In three months, he dropped nearly 80 pounds. When he saw his withered face in the mirror, he could hardly bear the sight. 

And then, on New Year’s Eve of that year, in the middle of yet another amphetamine-induced state of euphoria, he had an epiphany: if he didn’t get help, he wouldn’t see another New Year’s Day. 

In the summer of 1967, at the age of 34, Oliver went back to England for a vacation. While he was there, he experienced a sudden burst of creativity, and he wrote out a first draft of his book about migraines in just a couple of weeks. The words practically poured out of him. 

If life were simpler, he would have just delivered the manuscript to the publisher, and the rest would have been history. But, alas, life is not so simple. 

Although he’d just been fired, Oliver felt a strange sense of relief. Sure, he was now unemployed and about to maybe get blacklisted from his profession, but he was also free to finish his book. 

By this point, he’d already finished a draft of the manuscript and secured a publishing deal with Faber & Faber, a British publisher. And, once again, if life were simple, that would have been the end of the story. He would have just polished the manuscript, sent it off for publication, and gone on to become a famous writer who wrote many critically acclaimed books. 

Epilogue:

Oliver Sacks went on to become a highly acclaimed author. Over the course of his career, he wrote more than a dozen books. He also continued to work as a neurologist in various hospitals and clinics in New York, where he lived for the rest of his life.