Heavy Light cover art

Heavy Light

A Journey Through Madness, Mania and Healing

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Heavy Light

By: Horatio Clare
Narrated by: Horatio Clare
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Heavy Light is the story of a breakdown: a journey through mania, psychosis and treatment in a psychiatric hospital and onwards to release, recovery and healing.

After a lifetime of ups and downs, Horatio Clare was committed to hospital under section two of the Mental Health Act.

From hypomania in the Alps, to a complete breakdown and a locked ward in Wakefield, this is a gripping account of how the mind loses touch with reality, how we fall apart and how we can be healed - or not - by treatment. A story of the wonder and intensity of the manic experience, as well as its peril and strangeness, it is shot through with the love, kindness, humour and care of those who deal with someone who becomes dangerously ill.

Partly a tribute to those who looked after Horatio, from family and friends to strangers and professionals, and partly an investigation into how we understand and treat acute crises of mental health, Heavy Light's beauty, power and compassion illuminate a fundamental part of human experience. It asks urgent questions about mental health that affect each and every one of us.

A book to look out for in 2021 in the Observer.

©2021 Horatio Clare (P)2021 Penguin Audio Art & Literature Authors Medical Medicine & Health Care Industry Mental Health Professionals & Academics Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Health Inspiring Thought-Provoking Suspenseful

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Critic reviews

"An extraordinary book: deeply moving, darkly funny and hugely powerful." (Robert Macfarlane)

"One of the most brilliant travel writers of our day takes us us now to that most challenging country, severe mental illness; and does so with such wit, warmth and humanity, that, better acquainted with its terrors, we may better face our own." (Reverend Richard Coles)

"A record of the bravest, most perilous, most intrepid journey that any human being can ever make. It is stricken, moving, urgent, crucial.... A luminous, beautiful achievement." (Niall Griffiths)
All stars
Most relevant
Challenging at times to listen to, this is an honest and fascinating account of a descent into mental illness and subsequent recovery, showing that recovery is both possible and achievable with the right conditions.... which includes going against our institutional norms of medication and medicalisation and instead listening to our own selves as humans and being treated in that way as a human in distress. Well written and nicely narrated, Horatio Clare became a familiar and trusted voice and is very much worth listening to. Some fascinating detail and statistics from our mental health system past and present too.

Brilliant and inspiring

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A powerful, personal memoir which shifts from lunatic delusion, through haphazard healthcare experiences and out into an impassioned call for a more nuanced and human-led approach to nurturing those who err from accepted codes of ‘normality’. If you’ve had any encounters with the mental health system or struggles with mental wellbeing, there’s a great deal to treasure here. Vaulting, poignant descriptions of nature, sequences of excruciatingly honest detail, and the author’s polished rosewood intonation combine to create a deeply rewarding experience.

Intense and rewarding

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Clare describes a spectacular shift in narrative which holistic healing has always promoted but society bound by economic forces refuses to see. A much needed account of the type of changes in social attitude that will help rather than poison our mentally disordered. The book shows these patients to be largely those who dare to struggle (i e. the ones displaying rather than repressing the hardships of birthing the soul) and we should benefit from their struggle to understand a better more human less pharmaceutical way forward together. Let's stop excluding brilliant souls for their troubled minds, social polarisation and alienation causes them to have in the first place.

A man in balance

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Having heard Horatio Clare’s Radio4 series asking if Psychiatry is working, and having experienced a life changing event involving mental health last year, I was drawn to this book and found it incredible helpful and insightful. A must read/listen for anyone who “suffers with their mental health” or has a loved one who does.

If only I’d read/heard this, this time last year

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I very much enjoyed listening to Horatio Clare read his book. Surprisingly for someone detailing the intricacies of a psychotic breakdown it felt mature, sensible and grounded. Delivered with a refreshing honesty which feels sadly lacking in most places one looks at the moment, Not in a self promoting/pitying way that ‘honesty’ can often be peddled and manipulated, but on the more constructive, forward thinking, positive and altruistic side of the coin, Thank you Horatio. Let’s hope the right people listen.

Also I’d be delighted if Horatio would record a bunch of audio books. The delivery was superb.

Brave, open, honest and compelling

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