Let Me Not Be Mad

My Story of Unraveling Minds

By: A. K. Benjamin

Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith

Inspired by Dr. A. K. Benjamin's years working as a clinical neuropsychologist at a London hospital, this multilayered narrative interweaves Benjamin's own sometimes shocking personal experiences with those of his mentally disordered patients.

What do doctors actually think about when you list your problems in the consulting room? Are they really listening to you? Is the connection all in your head? Every day for 10 years - even while his hospital became the set for a reality television series - clinical neuropsychologist A. K. Benjamin confronted these questions, and this book is his attempt to tell the truth about what happens in these rooms in hospitals the world over.

What begins as a series of exquisitely observed case studies examining personalities on the brink of collapse soon morphs into a unique work of nonfiction as Benjamin's own psyche begins to twist the story in surprising ways. Blazingly original, Let Me Not Be Mad undermines the authority we so willingly hand over to clinical psychologists as it bears witness to the self-obsession of Western society, and ultimately offers a glimpse of what it might mean to be sane and truly empathetic.

Fractured, sad, playful, brilliant, and confrontational, this is a confession by a professional that delves into the heart of the patient-doctor relationship and ultimately finds love. This twisting psychological journey will be listened to and re-listened to.

"A well-conceived and written exploration of the traps hidden in the art of mental healing.” (Kirkus)

“Exhilarating...dazzling...a miraculous feat.” (The Guardian)

©2019 A. K. Benjamin (P)2019 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Benjamin travels terrain between reality and psychosis in this complex memoir of mental illness and treatment, and readers willing to burrow into troubled minds will be fascinated.” (Booklist)

“Magnificently unsettling.... [Benjamin] reels off superbly sympathetic statements with the kind of professional tenderness worthy of Oliver Sacks.... This book about madness becomes itself the chronicle of a shattering breakdown...[the book’s] conclusion feels like a benediction.” (The New York Times)

"A perfectly extraordinary - not to mention extraordinarily perfect - drama that centers about the fraught, ferocious, hilarious, dangerous, and explosive relationships that develop between therapist and patient. Like a tense Hitchockian psychodrama, the ticking bomb of the psychiatrist's own sanity makes itself heard on every page. In unravelling the minds of others, the mind of the analyst can often unravel, too. I have rarely read a more haunting, enthralling, and perfectly written account of a descent into madness. An important, profound, and fascinating book." (Stephen Fry, actor)

“Imagine a gonzo Oliver Sacks communing with Edward St. Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose, R.D. Laing, and the spirit of Kafka’s A Country Doctor, and you still won’t quite have the flavor of this wild and strikingly original book.” (William Fiennes, best-selling author of The Music Room and The Snow Geese)