________________________ THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED MEMOIR OF BEN WATT'S BATTLE WITH A RARE ILLNESS ________________________ 'Intensely moving' - Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph 'Quiet elegance and ringing epiphanic lyricism... a nearly flawless telling of his unexpected and drawn-out battle with an extremely rare - and nearly fatal - illness' - New Yorker ________________________ In 1992, Ben Watt, a member of the band Everything But The Girl, contracted a rare life-threatening illness that baffled doctors and required months of ...
Read More
________________________ THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED MEMOIR OF BEN WATT'S BATTLE WITH A RARE ILLNESS ________________________ 'Intensely moving' - Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph 'Quiet elegance and ringing epiphanic lyricism... a nearly flawless telling of his unexpected and drawn-out battle with an extremely rare - and nearly fatal - illness' - New Yorker ________________________ In 1992, Ben Watt, a member of the band Everything But The Girl, contracted a rare life-threatening illness that baffled doctors and required months of hospital treatment and operations. This is the story of his fight for survival and the effect it had on him and those nearest him. 'In the summer of 1992, on the eve of a trip to America, I was taken to a London hospital with bad chest pain and stomach pains. They kept me in for two and half months. I fell very ill - about as ill it is possible to be without actually dying - confronting a disease hardly anyone, not even some doctors, had heard of. People ask what was it like, and I say yes, of course it was dramatic and graphic and all that stuff, but at times it was just kind of comic and strange. It was, I suppose, my life-changing story.' ________________________ 'Ben Watt's harrowing, candid account of his near death from one of the world's rarest diseases lives on in the mind - a fine testimonial to his fortitude, his powers as a writer and the NHS.' - William Boyd, Sunday Times
Read Less
A sad, hilarious and poetic account of a life chan
I have to initially declare a vested interest in this book, having like Watt been diagnosed with Churg-Straus Syndrome in 2006, suffering cerebral vasculitis and two minor strokes at the age of 39. However be assured this poignant book is not exclusively for CSS sufferers,its reminiscences of hospitilisation and the arduous road to recovery subsequent to illness or accident will be sadly familiar to many readers as it is an inevitable rite of passage we must all endure at some stage in our lives.
Watt brilliantly depicts the withdrawal into oneself, the retreat into a child like, helpless state that illness brings.The sense of your life on hold as you gain snippets of normality through windows or wheel chair bound excursions through hospital corridors, cafes and grounds.He also expertly captures the associated frustration and the initial deluded belief that there will be a return to the pre-illness normality.
Particularly redolent of my own time in hospital is the sense of feeling special and the guilty enjoyment of attention that illness can bring and its attendant influence over relatives and carers.Watt brilliantly captures the awkwardness of parents lurched back into the role of carers and the differing abilities of family members to deal with your illness.But it is the love of and constancy of his partner, Tracy which is the scaffold to his recovery, something I too can closely relate to.
The invasiveness of medical procedures and the indignity they bring is poignantly described.I too can particularly relate to the personal awkwardness of myself and medical staff when administering chemotherapy,the outrageous banality of it and the lack of privacy when coping with nausea.
Interspersed amongst the visceral detail, Watt lightens the tone by hilariously depicting the absurdity of hospital life recalling: bizarre conversations, incidents, patients and doctors and nurses - familiar to any one who has had an extended stay in hospital.Although I was never a fan of his music,it must be said Watt writes with a lyrical and poetic style, particularly in the description of his drug induced dreams and reveries.His use of geographical or geological metaphors also suggests the university study of geography or geology.
