Her memoir The Memory Palace received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Memoir/Autobiography and her novel The Wonderling is being adapted into a film.
As Herr grew older with her sister Rachel, Norma was diagnosed with schizophrenia and attacked her daughters consistently.
[5] The following year, she suffered a brain injury causing memory loss when her car was hit by a truck on the New York Thruway.
[8] Following her mother's death, Bartók began to write her memoir but had trouble with her memory due to her previous accident.
While struggling to write, she read of Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci who taught that one should use imagery to assist in their memory recall.