Stroke survivor publishes novel
Literature is not about blood vessels; it’s about what people do with their lives. — Michael Warren
By Natasha Whitling

Michael Warren

“I remember the doctor saying I should be dead,” said Michael Warren, author of The Estrangement of the Rain God.

Warren, a Columbia native, suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage, the deadliest of all strokes, January, 2004. Warren’s subarachnoid hemorrhage was caused by a ruptured aneurysm which resulted in bleeding on his brain. He had suffered from migraines for over 20 years, so when the first symptoms of the stroke began to appear, he thought it was just a migraine. However, when he began to experience meningitis–like symptoms, such as an extremely stiff neck, he knew it was time to call his doctor. He took a cab to the hospital where they discovered the bleeding.

Illustration courtesy of Tudor Publishing

The medical staff slowly stabilized his blood pressure, and the bleeding subsided. Unfortunately, the stroke left him mentally impaired. “I lost all geographical sense,” he said. “Every direction looked the same to me.” Everyday tasks such as driving to the grocery store were frightening because he could not remember how to get home.

Warren also suffered from dyslexia as a result of the stroke, a major challenge for a writer. Eventually, he began creating mental cues and writing notes to remember to pay bills and take his medicine. He soon realized if he ever hoped to write again he would have to begin reading.

“The process was extremely tiring because of the dyslexia and the medication,” Warren said. After catching up on some classics he never had a chance to read, he felt up to the task of reviewing the notes for his book.

At first he did not have any memory of the plot. “They were just words to me,” Warren said. The novel, a story of a man struggling after a divorce, was loosely based on incidents from Warren’s own life. “I could have easily written my own story, but that is not what the novel was about,” he said.

While on a cruise with his girlfriend, the stroke–induced fog finally started to lift, and Warren was able to use his notes and write the book, which is in the process of being reviewed. Fred Chappell, novelist and former poet laureate of NC, said “I think Estrangement will make a strong offering to a wide public, and I recommend it to close attention.”

Warren was born in 1949 in Columbia and attended Rosewood Elementary School, Hand Middle School, and graduated from Columbia High School in 1966. After graduation he moved to Greensboro, NC, and attended UNCG. He currently resides in that area.

Warren was no stranger to medical challenges. In May 1974, he was pronounced dead after a car crash. He was revived but now lives with surgical staples in his heart and a steel rod in his arm.

He was the chief operating officer for a software company in Charlotte when the tech bubble burst, and he was forced to find other employment.

Warren was prepared to launch his new company, Syndetyx, a management consulting firm, when he had his stroke. “I had to use all the money for the business to pay for medical bills,” he said. “I’m just now getting it going again. I do the business by day and write during my free time.” There is a plan in the works to have his second novel completed by December 31, 2005.

Since his recovery, Warren hasn’t noted much change in his writing. “I may write with more urgency now,” he said. “I somehow feel I have much less time left.” He may have other potentially defective aneu-rysms, but physicians are unable to do an MRI because of the staples in his heart. “I’m not even sure I’d want to know, because there is little you can do about it.”

For now, he continues to write but not about his health issues. “I may have a character go through a stroke, since I know about it first hand,” he said. “But it won’t be the focus. To me, literature is not about blood vessels; it’s about what people do with their lives.”