He spoke too fast for my brain, using words like fistula, ileostomy, and carcinomatosis. I had no idea what he was talking about. It looked like he was drawing the map of a city as seen from above. Was this what is inside us, these roads and byways, these rotaries and hairpin turns?

Excerpted from The Memory Palace by Mira Bartók. Copyright © 2011 by Mira Bartók. Excerpted by permission of Free Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.