Who are you when your brain is not you?'

Jane Lapotaire is one of the lucky ones. Many people do not survive, let alone live intelligently and well again once they have suffered cerebral haemorrhage. In the long haul back to life - 'nearly dying was the easy bit' - she's learned much, some of it very hard lessons. Some friendships became casualties; family relations had to be redefined; and her work as an actress took a severe battering. The stress of living is felt that much more keenly when 'sometimes I still feel as if I am walking around with my brain outside my body. A brain still all too available for smashing by noise, physical jostling, or any form of harshness'. But she has survived and now believes it herself when people say how lucky she is.

This is a very moving, darkly funny, honest book about what happens when the 'you' you've known all your life is no longer the same you.

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About the Author
Jane Lapotaire has been a leading member of the National Theatre and the RSC for more than thirty years. She holds a visiting fellowship at Sussex University and teaches at the Actors' Centre and the British American Drama Academy. She lives in Warwickshire and south London.

Reviews
splendidly written memoir about dealing with the unexpected personality change the actress suffered after brain surgery'. Sunday Times * 'a sensitive rumination on the minutiae of illness and the ways in which fortitude can overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.' *
Sunday Telegraph * 'As a work of literature, Jane Lapotaire's book is possibly the most ambitious of them all...it is a brave and bracing book and one that deserves a wide readership.' *
Ireland on Sunday * 'Lapotaire's frank story..filled with wry asides.' *
Irish News * 'Like Antony Sher, she is brutally honest about herself and her state of mind, and writes with such vivid immediacy that you marvel at her honesty and recall.' *


Awards
Short-listed for Mind Book of the Year Award 2004 (UK).



Book Information
ISBN 9781844080557
Author Jane Lapotaire
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Virago Press Ltd
Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
Weight(grams) 318g
Dimensions(mm) 200mm * 126mm * 16mm