Editions

Let Me Not Be Mad

  • Imprint: Vintage

  • ISBN: 9781784709075

  • Length: 224  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 14mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 182g

  • RRP: £9.99

Let Me Not Be Mad

  • A Story of Unravelling Minds

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

  • Imprint: Vintage

  • ISBN: 9781784709075

  • Length: 224  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 14mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 182g

  • RRP: £9.99

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

About the Author

A K Benjamin

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.

A K Benjamin