Mayhem cover art

Mayhem

A Memoir

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Mayhem

By: Sigrid Rausing
Narrated by: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Only £0.99 a month for the first 3 months. Pay £0.99 for the first 3 months, and £8.99/month thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Start my membership

About this listen

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Mayhem by Sigrid Rausing, read by Maggie Gyllenhaal.

A searingly powerful memoir about the impact of addiction on a family.

In the summer of 2012 a woman named Eva was found dead in the London townhouse she shared with her husband, Hans K. Rausing. The couple had struggled with drug addiction for years, often under the glare of tabloid headlines. Now, writing with singular clarity and restraint the editor and publisher Sigrid Rausing, tries to make sense of what happened to her brother and his wife.

In Mayhem, she asks the difficult questions those close to the world of addiction must face. 'Who can help the addict, consumed by a shaming hunger, a need beyond control? There is no medicine: the drugs are the medicine. And who can help their families, so implicated in the self-destruction of the addict? Who can help when the very notion of 'help' becomes synonymous with an exercise of power; a familial police state; an end to freedom, in the addict's mind?'

©2017 Sigrid Rausing (P)2017 Penguin Audio Addiction & Recovery Mental Health Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Memoir Substance abuse Health Marriage Medicine

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Unspeakable cover art
One Hundred Years of Dirt cover art
Alexander McQueen: Blood Beneath the Skin cover art
Flesh Wounds cover art
Quitter cover art
The Examined Life cover art
The Consequences of Love cover art
Hometown Tales: Glasgow cover art
Will You Read This, Please? cover art
The Trip to Echo Spring cover art
In Gratitude cover art
The Song Before It Is Sung cover art
All stars
Most relevant
I loved that this was not a linear timeline, worth a read for sure, addiction affects the lives of all the family.

An interesting take on addiction

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The author clearly knows how to write but she also writes in a way that makes difficult for a reader to emotionaly connect with the story. The book is more a collection of her thoughts than an involving story. Also, the summary of the book is somehow misleading as it is more the story of the author than of her addicted brother. Great narrator though !

Boring

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I didn't know anything about the story. I chose it because it is read by Maggie Gyllenhaal and she reads in a mesmerising lilt that I find very soothing yet compelling (I have also listened to her read The Bell Jar and also Anna Karenina). The memoir was fascinating, a sensitive and raw family insider account of a story ravaged by the media, like so many others. I've since been prompted to read more about the family online and am very glad I listened to this memoir first.

Fascinating and beautifully read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A revealing insight into the experiences of families struggling with addiction. Beautifully written and beautifully read by Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Very poignant and beautifully read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Maggie Gyllenhaal superbly narrates this haunting and tragic story that leaves its mark on the listener

Haunting

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews