Blurbs

"A marvelous book about how one man and his enigmatic test came to shape our collective imagination. The Rorschach test is a great subject and The Inkblots is worthy of it: beguiling, fascinating, and full of new discoveries every time you look." –David Grann

"A deft, surprising, and illuminating portrait of Hermann Rorschach, and a compelling case that his improbable inkblot experiment should earn him a place in the pantheon of psychology." –Joshua Wolf Shenk

"What an amazing book. The Rorschach inkblot is like the enigmatic corpse in a mystery novel, and Damion Searls is the passionate and encyclopedic detective who unpacks the intricate and twisted story of how it came to be. By the end, one feels that Rorschach and his test are the key to understanding the whole 20th century. Searls is a wonderful writer, funny, compassionate, and unfailingly attentive to all the magical coincidences (or are they?) and twists of human history." –Elif Batuman

"The life of this fascinating man is a much-needed contribution to the history of psychoanalysis. This is sure to become the standard reference for both Hermann Rorschach's life and times and the history of the inkblot test from his time to ours." –Deirdre Bair

"The Inkblots is three books in one: an engaging biography of Hermann Rorschach; a vivid and meticulously researched history of his eponymous inkblots; and a fascinating exploration of the psychology of perception. This is a book that challenges us to consider the relationship between what we see and who we are."
–Peter Mendelsund

"Who knew? Most of the founding lions of psychoanalysis often seem as petty and infantile as they were (at times) brilliant and inspired. But to hear Damion Searls tell it in this absorbing new biography, Hermann Rorschach was a different sort altogether: humane, empathic, loving, deeply sane, and possessed of a true artist's soul. Searls's account of Rorschach's afterlife is no less fascinating, as every culture that encountered his test seemed to project its own values onto it. In the end, true to Rorschach, Searls locates the heart of being human at the endlessly unfurling intersection of vision and self-awareness." –Lawrence Weschler

"In this accessible biography of Rorschach, Damion Searls shows us the young psychologist, who died at a tragically early age, making his way among the feuding early 20th century thinkers in psychology, including Freud and Jung. Vividly sketched with many new sources, The Inkblots reveals Rorschach to be a fascinating character: part artist, part clinician. A marvelous portrait." –Peter Galison

Reviews

"A richly detailed, sensitive biography of Rorschach's short life and long afterlife." –Kirkus Reviews

Best Science and Psychology Books of 2017 –New York Magazine
Best Books of February 2017 –Signature Reads

"Searls restores much of the test's potency in this rich, resonant book... Drawing on new material, Searls creates a warm-blooded portrait of a man who feels like a Hollywood biopic in waiting... Even in the age of alternative facts, there are still right answers, and wrong ones, and the inkblots still ring true."–Sunday Times (UK)

"From the first chapter of The Inkblots, it seems incredible that no one before Damion Searls has ever written a biography of Rorschach. [The psychiatrist's] early death may have deterred other would-be biographers, but Searls sails past it with style: the second half of his book traces the fortunes of Rorschach's famous test, which became a household word in America after World War II.
  Searls uses this unlikely-seeming artifact to illuminate two histories, one scientific, the other cultural, both full of surprises."
–Lorin Stein, Paris Review Staff Picks