Let Me Not Be Mad is an immersive, virtuosic and provocative investigation of madness, love and self-destruction that defies categorisation.

'Exhilarating ... dazzling ... a miraculous feat' Guardian

'I have rarely read a more haunting and enthralling account of a descent into madness' Stephen Fry

A consulting room with two people in it. One of them is talking, the other is listening. Both of them need help.

Throughout his life, A. K. Benjamin has found himself drawn to extreme behaviour: as a contemplative monk, an advocate for homeless addicts, a support-worker for gang members and for many years as a Clinical Neuropsychologist.

His book begins as a series of clinical encounters with anonymised patients. But with each encounter, it becomes increasingly and disturbingly apparent that what we are reading is not really about the patients - it is, instead, about the author's own fevered descent into mental illness as he confronts his traumatic past.

'Stunning: clever, troubling, restless, honest, dishonest' Olivia Laing

'Blackly comic, warmly compassionate, a unique take on the human mind' Stewart Lee

A non-fiction literary psycho-thriller about a clinical neuropsychologist's descent into madness with an ingenious and shocking twist

About the Author
A K Benjamin is a Clinical Neuropsychologist, specialising in diagnostics and acute rehab. Previously he was a screenwriter, spent two years as a contemplative monk and has worked at a number of NGOs, with homeless addicts, with gangs and with children with acquired and congenital neurological conditions. He no longer lives in the UK. A K Benjamin is not his real name.

Reviews
Exhilarating ... dazzling ... a miraculous feat * Guardian *
A mental-health memoir like no other ... a genre-defying wake-up call of a book ... compelling ... clever humane ... holding back a sly twist for the end * Observer *
Let Me Not be Mad is stunning: clever, troubling, restless, honest, dishonest; one of the best portraits of madness and clinical practice I've read. I read it in two sittings. Extraordinary -- Olivia Laing
A perfectly extraordinary - not to mention extraordinarily perfect - tense Hitchcockian psychodrama. I have rarely read a more haunting and enthralling account of a descent into madness. An important, profound and fascinating book -- Stephen Fry
Imagine a gonzo Oliver Sacks communing with Edward St Aubyn's Patrick Melrose, R.D. Laing and the spirit of Kafka's 'The Country Doctor', and you still won't quite have the flavour of this wild and strikingly original book -- William Fiennes
Brilliant and alarming, written with cunning and self-lacerating honesty. The doctor is sick, but his intelligence, his scope of reference, his damaged sagacity could save us all -- Iain Sinclair
Blackly comic, warmly compassionate, a unique take on the human mind offering uncomfortable universal truths -- Stewart Lee
A treasure of a book. Intricately woven and deeply intimate, it reveals things that astonish, surprise and improve us -- James Rhodes, author of Instrumental
A truly astonishing journey into and out of the mind. Not content to pin you down with the intense intimacy of his storytelling Benjamin dramatises some of the most profound and intractable issues in neuroscience and psychiatry. I've never read anything like it -- Professor Mark Lythgoe, UCL
Like a meeting of Oliver Sacks and Hunter S Thompson ... this is not a simple narrative of striking cases written by a far-seeing practitioner. It's a turbo-charged race -- Lisa Appignanesi * New Statesman *
At first I thought this an exceptionally well written book in the genre of medical story telling. The more I read the more I realised it's an exceptional book in a genre all of its own. Insightful, wonderfully well observed and beautifully written -- Suzanne O'Sullivan, author of It's All in Your Head
A slow-burn belter of a book ... terrific ... so finely described, the result has the terse force of a classic short story * Spectator *
Strange, claustrophobic, haunting ... a dizzying whirlpool -- Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday *
Brilliant and engrossing -- Roddy Doyle
Along the way the anonymised author, AK Benjamin, offers funny and unsettling insights into the vagaries of the relationship between clinicians and patients -- Colin Grant * New Statesman, *Books of the Year* *



Book Information
ISBN 9781784709075
Author A K Benjamin
Format Paperback
Page Count 224
Imprint Vintage
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 182g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 14mm