In 1988 , Sternburg married Steven D. Lavine who had recently been appointed president of California Institute of the Arts . In January 1994 , the Northridge earthquake severely damaged the CalArts campus . For Sternburg , the experience served as a profound object lesson in the fragility of all things , leading her to write the book '' Phantom Limb : A Meditation on Memory . '' The book has been described as “ part moving account of greater love in the face of her mother ’s death , part medical inquiry into neurology , and part spiritual meditation on the struggles and sufferings that living visits on each of us . ” Her most recent book , '' White Matter : A Memoir of Family and Medicine '' ( September , 2015 ) is the second in a projected trilogy . A story of family secrets and mental illness , '' White Matter '' spans one hundred years and the lives of five sisters and one brother , interwoven with science and history
Northridge earthquake
1994 Northridge earthquake
Janet Sternburg