Heavy Light

A beautiful, unflinchingly honest book about madness, mania, parenting, surviving and, above all, love and its power to heal us * Rachel Clarke, author of Dear Life and Breathtaking *A brave, lit-up account of going mad and getting better, that forensically tracks the footprints of both journeys towards a settlement with the self – Jeanette WintersonReaders of Clare’s game-changing memoir … will be struck by the fact that a mind so recently dominated by straight-to-DVD fantasies is now capable of reflecting on them with so much gentle wisdom and acute self-awareness. And in such beautiful, witty prose * Daily Telegraph *Hard-hitting but tender-hearted … Clare thoughtfully and determinedly seeks to challenge the status-quo on treatment for mental health conditions * Independent *What a gift…having such an articulate agent, reporting back from the far edges of the mind * Sunday Times *I loved Heavy Light: its honesty, its questing intelligence…his description of our threadbare mental health services, and the inhuman pressures on those who work in them, is heart-breaking. We have to do better * British Medical Journal *A shattering journey … remarkable – Sheena Joughin * Times Literary Supplement *Clare is a wildly endearing narrator of his own turmoil … [his] is a persuasive argument not only against chemical answers to his own illness, but also against the hasty (and often permanent) way individuals are labelled with diagnostic categories – Brian Dillon * Financial Times *Compelling, beautifully-written and utterly devastating. A balm in itself – Katie Law * Evening Standard *Clare brilliantly describes his mania… But he has a wider purpose here. Following his discharge from hospital Clare sets out to explore alternatives to the lifetime of terrifyingly strong medication he has been prescribed – Stephanie Cross * Lady *

Horatio Clare is the bestselling author of numerous books including the memoirs Running for the Hills and Truant and the travel books A Single Swallow, Down to the Sea in Ships, Orison for a Curlew, Icebreaker and The Light in the Dark. His books for children include Aubrey and the Terrible Yoot and Aubrey and the Terrible Ladybirds. Horatio’s essays and reviews appear on BBC radio and in the Financial Times, the Observer and the Spectator, among other publications. He lives with his family in West Yorkshire.