Boston Athenæum

May 17, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. Texas-born and Harvard-educated, Dr. Perry Baird was a rising medical star in the late 1920s and 1930s. Early in his career, ahead of his time, he grew fascinated with identifying the biochemical root of manic depression, just as he began to suffer from it himself. By the time the results of his groundbreaking experiments were published, Dr. Baird had been institutionalized many times, his medical license revoked, and his wife and daughters estranged. Mimi Baird grew up never fully knowing this story, as her family went silent about the father who had been absent for most of her childhood. Decades later, a string of extraordinary coincidences led to the recovery of a manuscript which Dr. Baird had written during his brutal institutionalization, confinement, and escape. Baird set off on a quest to piece together the memoir and the man. The result of his extraordinary record and her journey to bring his name to light is He Wanted the Moon, an unforgettable testament to the