That combination of elements has produced an improbable book, indeed almost an impossible one. She was already a first-rate reporter on feminist issues as well as an aspiring humorist with a wry, sardonic tone. If Jehovah chose Job to persecute because he knew that upright man's faith would never waver, maybe he had his own reasons for afflicting Paula Kamen with a never-ending headache. (She's not so delighted that a New York Times critic cited her book, without reading it, as an example of the glut of self-indulgent memoirs.) But Kamen's headache is enough to make you suspect there might be a God. Kamen is able to appreciate the joke, up to a point.

On one level, this is ludicrous: A woman gets a headache and writes a book about it. Over the last 14 years it's been her constant companion, waxing and waning like the phases of the moon - sometimes so intense she can't function at all, sometimes barely noticeable - but never completely going away.

See, she got this headache when she was putting in her contacts in a Chicago hotel bathroom - in 1991. For most of us that would be a pretty bad day, possibly requiring three or four ibuprofens, a couple of grande Starbucks concoctions, dark sunglasses and a lot of grumbling.īut Kamen says she's feeling great.

On the day I call her in Madison, Wis., where she's made a stop to promote her new book, 'All in My Head,' which is a memoir and a cultural history and a comic odyssey through the licensed and unlicensed health professions and a lot of other things besides, she rates the headache a 3 or 4 on a scale of 10.

All in My Head by Paula Kamen