The Make-Believe

An extraordinary memoir - propulsive, immersive; like nothing I have ever read before. I read it in one day and thought about it for weeks afterwards. – Dolly Alderton, author of EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT LOVEThe Make-Believe is a page-turning and generous book that is intensely concerned with what it means to be human. Hannah Murray is a masterful storyteller. – Rebecca Watson, author of I WILL CRASHI was deeply moved and compelled by this vital, brave, memoir. Murray’s account of her experience is intensely open-hearted and lyrical, depicting just how porous the boundaries and realities of our lives can become. A stunning achievement. – Sophie Mackintosh, author of CURSED BREADA mind-blowing memoir, exquisitely told. * Red Magazine *A memoir of real literary power that wields a writer’s full toolkit, with finger-biting dramatic irony, vivid sensory evocation and pithy statements of uncomfortable truth. The premise is fascinating, but her execution is what makes this story uniquely compelling. – Naoise Dolan, author of THE HAPPY COUPLEThis book is brilliantly and beautifully written, fast-flowing, deeply felt and observed. Hannah Murray is a writer of tremendous skill and fearlessness. – Daisy Johnson, author of EVERYTHING UNDER and SISTERSReading The Make-Believe, I shivered as I recognized the terror and seduction entwined in Hannah Murray’s story. This memoir is harrowing, yes—but it is also exquisitely written, tracing the fracture of a mind and the fierce, fragile work of reclaiming it. The cult memoir world needed this book. – Daniella Mestynaek Young, author of UNCULTUREDIn The Make-Believe, Hannah Murray traces the subtle architecture of belief: how need becomes trust, and trust becomes surrender. What makes this memoir so remarkable is what Murray resists—she does not cast herself as a victim or offer easy lessons. Instead, she reveals, moment by moment, how a person in search of healing can gradually lose herself. The power lies in the restraint, in the questions left unanswered. This is a book about the cost of wanting to be saved. – Ruth Wariner, New York Times bestselling author of THE SOUND OF GRAVELAn utterly exceptional memoir … A lyrical, powerful examination of what it means to be “well”. – Elizabeth DayMurray crashes through the looking glass, taking us with her into a fantasy world of vast meadows, sea creatures and a golden chalice embedded with amethysts that exist only in her mind. Reality bends and eventually snaps as you read on, and the immersive feel of her writing allows for a deft bit of trickery. It is so claustrophobic as to make it feel like you’re stuck in someone’s mind with their thoughts pressing up against you, and with no footing on solid ground. * Observer *

Hannah Murray worked as an actor for over a decade, starring in E4’s Skins and HBO’s Game of Thrones. She studied English at Cambridge University and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. The Make-Believe is her first book.