Patient 1 cover art

Patient 1

Forgetting and Finding Myself

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Patient 1

By: Charlotte Raven, Edward Wild
Narrated by: Anna Wilson-Jones, Dr Ed Wild
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Charlotte Raven had never heard of Huntington's Disease when, in her mid-thirties, she discovered that her father was suffering from the illness. Life for her and her young family would never be the same again.

Patient 1 is her brutally candid account of coming to terms with this inherited neurodegenerative disease, which can manifest at any time in life for people who carry the faulty gene. As the illness began to take hold of Raven's body, mind and memory, she began to write. She wrote like her life depended on it - and in many ways she believed it did. Frank and fearless, Patient 1 is an act of self-preservation and a kind of reckoning: with the illness, with the person she once was, with the person she is now.

In an afterword, Raven's doctor Ed Wild - one of the country's leading experts in Huntington's - explains how doctors and patients like Charlotte are working together in the hope of one day eliminating this disease altogether.

Honest, intelligent and unsentimental, Patient 1 is a startling self-portrait written with wit and vulnerability, and a unique testament to the power of hope in the face of illness.

© Charlotte Raven 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

 Genetic Medical Physical Illness & Disease Professionals & Academics Women Health

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Critic reviews

Insightful, frank and often moving... Though there is an underlying note of deep sadness, more often she writes with humour, a dose of self mockery and no small amount of courage. (Stephanie Merritt)
[An] unsparing memoir... but Raven does much more than write an illness memoir... Raven explains in her introduction that Huntington's is not a linear disease but is experienced rather as a series of traumatic random-seeming assaults... it is that formless inevitability...that Raven enacts so powerfully here. (Kathryn Hughes)
A phenomenal achievement... [it] chronicles her journey into her illness in a way that is truthful, traumatic and brave.
Brutally candid... [a] devastating but remarkable testament of self-preservation. (Caroline Sanderson)
Charlotte Raven's Patient 1 is brilliant, terrifying, heart-breaking and laceratingly honest. She has the unflinching, unsentimental clarity of Rachel Cusk and the tender humour of John Bayley - but her style is utterly unique. (Peter Bradshaw)

A searingly honest and important read. With neither pity nor sentimentality, Charlotte Raven captures the experience of living while losing one's mind. I cannot forget her words.

(Dr Rachel Clarke)

This is a deeply moving and profound memoir about facing the worst in life - and continuing. Everyone should read it.

(Johann Hari)

Patient 1 charts Charlotte Raven's bittersweet journey from her charmed, hedonist youth to an embattled future. Her charismatic character and scandalous humour is there on the page despite the creeping privations of Huntington's. With the kind of self-knowledge only accessible through suffering, she still manages to write powerfully and with beauty.

(Cornelia Parker)
A powerful account of living with Huntington's disease. (Katy Guest)
[A] chatty, irreverent memoir... a surprisingly pithy and entertaining read. The author's candour and self-depreciation make her all the more likeable.
All stars
Most relevant
Searingly honest, utterly fascinating, and incredibly informative on a very human level. This is an important book - not much is out there about Huntington’s from a first-person perspective, and it provides a vital degree of insight. I’d recommend this in a heartbeat to anyone who wants to understand not only the disease itself but the person behind it.

A must-read for anyone touched by HD

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As Charlotte says this is not a pity memoir. However it does depict, brutally at times, the horror of HD. I have never read a memoir, and I have read hundreds, that is so unflinchingly honest about the failings of the author, whilst at the same time making you feel that you have missed out a bit on the spark of life in not having shared a glass of good Sauvignon blanc with her. Go well Charlotte.

Heartbreakingly Honest

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