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Ink in the Blood: A Hospital Diary
Just after ‘Bring Up the Bodies’ author Hilary Mantel won the Man Booker for ‘Wolf Hall’, she fell gravely ill. This is her remarkable hospital diary. Originally published in the London Review of Books, this diary by the acclaimed author Hilary Mantel explores in forensic detail her loss of dignity, her determination, the concentration of the senses into an animalistic struggle to get through, and the attendant hallucinations she was plagued by during her stay in hospital. With her health now improved, and the acknowledgement of the Man Booker prize-winning follow-up to ‘Wolf Hall’, ‘Bring Up the Bodies’ as one of our greatest works of fiction, ‘Ink in the Blood’ remains a significant testament to the traumas of illness, and one of the most incredible and haunting essays published in a very long time.
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First published January 1, 2010
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About the author
Hilary Mantel
129 books7,945 followersHilary Mantel was the bestselling author of many novels including Wolf Hall, which won the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Bring Up the Bodies, Book Two of the Wolf Hall Trilogy, was also awarded the Man Booker Prize and the Costa Book Award. She also wrote A Change of Climate, A Place of Greater Safety, Eight Months on Ghazzah Street, An Experiment in Love, The Giant, O'Brien, Fludd, Beyond Black, Every Day Is Mother's Day, Vacant Possession, and a memoir, Giving Up the Ghost. Mantel was the winner of the Hawthornden Prize, and her reviews and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and the London Review of Books.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
May 9, 2025
"The Devil's in the Details" - with this timorous caveat, publicly-funded medicine falls ever-so-politely on its sword. And dies: as it did when, without researching Ms Mantel's medical history, it left her high and horrifically dry!
A stunningly powerful short work - a masterpiece within its genre - from the late doyenne of British literature, Dame Hilary Mantel.
The genre of which I'm writing is, if course, that of medical fiction. For me this short piece ranks high within that category. It is a transmogrified fantasy - how could it be anything else with the effectively mind-numbing painkillers she was given?
Now, one of the principal aims of all great fictional writing is to clarify new aspects of our own personalities in the context of the times in which we live.
And here we see the often brutal results of socializing the public medical process - which is, granted, a boon to so many in low income Canada and Britain - for its distinct dangers are legion.
One of these dangers is the powerful and highly questionable ability to incorrectly prescribe postoperative painkillers, which in turn can transport patients into a horrific state of hellish quadraphenia.
This can lead to temporary dementia, as it did for the author.
As Ms Mantel tells us, that area of the mind is dangerous, especially when rife with scary hallucinations. And for psychiatric patients the danger is doubled.
Like me, Ms Mantel had just such a personal history, stemming primarily, I would guess, from her (and my own) overactive childhood imagination - with their source in autism.
So, as a novella, it captures our hearts and allows us to almost relive her experiences in our minds.
It's downright spooky and it is written with a savage intensity.
But it leaves us wanting more of her honest, forthright writing.
And as she repeatedly sinks back down into the grasp of her innumerable imaginary demons, we cannot help thinking of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner:
Alone, alone, all - all alone
Alone on a sunless sea;
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in misery!
Five stars.
A stunningly powerful short work - a masterpiece within its genre - from the late doyenne of British literature, Dame Hilary Mantel.
The genre of which I'm writing is, if course, that of medical fiction. For me this short piece ranks high within that category. It is a transmogrified fantasy - how could it be anything else with the effectively mind-numbing painkillers she was given?
Now, one of the principal aims of all great fictional writing is to clarify new aspects of our own personalities in the context of the times in which we live.
And here we see the often brutal results of socializing the public medical process - which is, granted, a boon to so many in low income Canada and Britain - for its distinct dangers are legion.
One of these dangers is the powerful and highly questionable ability to incorrectly prescribe postoperative painkillers, which in turn can transport patients into a horrific state of hellish quadraphenia.
This can lead to temporary dementia, as it did for the author.
As Ms Mantel tells us, that area of the mind is dangerous, especially when rife with scary hallucinations. And for psychiatric patients the danger is doubled.
Like me, Ms Mantel had just such a personal history, stemming primarily, I would guess, from her (and my own) overactive childhood imagination - with their source in autism.
So, as a novella, it captures our hearts and allows us to almost relive her experiences in our minds.
It's downright spooky and it is written with a savage intensity.
But it leaves us wanting more of her honest, forthright writing.
And as she repeatedly sinks back down into the grasp of her innumerable imaginary demons, we cannot help thinking of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner:
Alone, alone, all - all alone
Alone on a sunless sea;
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in misery!
Five stars.
May 24, 2012
For all those American readers who cannot get this book (only available as a Kindle e-book from amazon.co.uk)...
You can read it free online from the London Review of Books:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n21/hilary-m...
Mantel originally wrote this long essay/memoir about her surgery in 2010, for the LRB. It was then published as the e-book; ironic since she is not a fan of e-books (though she has recently said she is trying them as a way of being able to read whilst traveling).
"Ink in the Blood" was also published--in a slightly re-edited format--in the Guardian. Both versions are excellent, but the Guardian edition makes explicit Mantel's need for surgery which, for readers who don't know she has suffered from severe Endometriosis, may be helpful and less jarring. If you do love Mantel's work, and found this essay as fascinating and groundbreaking as I believe it to be, you would do well to get a copy of "Giving Up the Ghost," her memoir (a full but not very long book). It is a perfect compendium to this essay.
--ELH
You can read it free online from the London Review of Books:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n21/hilary-m...
Mantel originally wrote this long essay/memoir about her surgery in 2010, for the LRB. It was then published as the e-book; ironic since she is not a fan of e-books (though she has recently said she is trying them as a way of being able to read whilst traveling).
"Ink in the Blood" was also published--in a slightly re-edited format--in the Guardian. Both versions are excellent, but the Guardian edition makes explicit Mantel's need for surgery which, for readers who don't know she has suffered from severe Endometriosis, may be helpful and less jarring. If you do love Mantel's work, and found this essay as fascinating and groundbreaking as I believe it to be, you would do well to get a copy of "Giving Up the Ghost," her memoir (a full but not very long book). It is a perfect compendium to this essay.
--ELH
November 4, 2019
When reading Wolf Hall it didn’t escape my attention how Mantel drew all the women, including Catherine of Aragon & Mary I, with a little depth if not fully drawn out. Unlike Anne Boleyn, who throughout the novel was drawn in flat one-dimensional colours and did receive the same treatment. I also noticed how all the women in A Place of Greater Safety also were given some depth regardless how small their role was. It was this puzzle that bought me to this book, wondering if it would solve this mystery for me.
As a read this is more an account and has little sign of Mantel’s fiction style. The tagline says ‘a hospital diary’, my understanding of ‘a diary’ implies the revelation of inner thoughts whereas this is really an experience told at arm’s length. The tone implies that things will be shared but it’s more reporting and told in general vagueness which gives very little away. There was no description of her private room in the hospital, and no character details of the nurses who saw to her or the visitors that came. However, I did come away with the hint of the difficulties she went through, though I could not always relate to her understanding of it. I was kind of surprised by this as I read in passing how Hilary Mantel has had various health problems throughout her life.
Also, whilst reading this, it was a surprise how much she talked about Virginia Woolf, pointing to her illness and Woolf’s tenacity to write when she was under doctor’s care. Mantel also mentions reading a biography of Catherine of Aragon before being published, and how during her poor health made her think about god more, she refers to death several times in the text.
I’m not sure if I found the answer to solve my puzzle or if it raised more questions. Maybe it will become clearer to me after I finish reading Bring Up the Bodies.
As a read this is more an account and has little sign of Mantel’s fiction style. The tagline says ‘a hospital diary’, my understanding of ‘a diary’ implies the revelation of inner thoughts whereas this is really an experience told at arm’s length. The tone implies that things will be shared but it’s more reporting and told in general vagueness which gives very little away. There was no description of her private room in the hospital, and no character details of the nurses who saw to her or the visitors that came. However, I did come away with the hint of the difficulties she went through, though I could not always relate to her understanding of it. I was kind of surprised by this as I read in passing how Hilary Mantel has had various health problems throughout her life.
Also, whilst reading this, it was a surprise how much she talked about Virginia Woolf, pointing to her illness and Woolf’s tenacity to write when she was under doctor’s care. Mantel also mentions reading a biography of Catherine of Aragon before being published, and how during her poor health made her think about god more, she refers to death several times in the text.
I’m not sure if I found the answer to solve my puzzle or if it raised more questions. Maybe it will become clearer to me after I finish reading Bring Up the Bodies.
January 2, 2020
From the author of Wolf Hall, Ink in the Blood is free to read currently on Kindle Unlimited and follows the real-life experience of Mantel having surgery in hospital. I believe this quick read was also published in a medical journal or magazine of some sort. Interesting but quite rambly. Triggers for mental health/hospital settings.
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November 21, 2011'This title is not available for customers from: United States(change region)'
OH FOR GODSAKES. LOOK, I WANT TO GIVE YOU MY MONEY. The fuck!
OH FOR GODSAKES. LOOK, I WANT TO GIVE YOU MY MONEY. The fuck!
August 21, 2011
I downloaded this onto my Kindle out of curiousity as I absolutely loved Wolf Hall and was keen to seek out other writing by Hilary Mantel but don't quite have the time for a full novel at the moment.
This is an extended diary entry reflecting on her experience of having and recovering from surgery so really couldn't be any more different in topic, tone and style to Wolf Hall. Still, I thought it was wonderfully written and extremely evocative of the various stages of illness and healing and the emotional impact of the entire process.
I would recommend Ink In The Blood: A Hospital Diary - it's well worth a read and I plan to read it all over again at some point soon.
This is an extended diary entry reflecting on her experience of having and recovering from surgery so really couldn't be any more different in topic, tone and style to Wolf Hall. Still, I thought it was wonderfully written and extremely evocative of the various stages of illness and healing and the emotional impact of the entire process.
I would recommend Ink In The Blood: A Hospital Diary - it's well worth a read and I plan to read it all over again at some point soon.
December 31, 2017
Brilliantly written and a moving account of illness and being in hospital. I would be interested in reading more by Mantel in 2018.
February 28, 2020
This was a short read about Mantel's time in hospital after having abdominal surgery. As I had a family member experience something similar, reading this made me understand more about their own experiences in the hospital, which were remarkably similar to Mantel's.
June 6, 2019
“If beaten eggs prove too much of a challenge, they say, I can have jelly instead. I want to say tartly that, unlike Virginia Woolf, I still have my own teeth.”
“The hospital campus has one beautiful building, a curve of shining white. As you sight it you say, ‘What is that lovely thing?’ It is the mortuary.”
“I wonder, though, if there is a little saint you can apply to, if you’re a person with holes in them? I can hardly expect the Trinity to care about my perforations, and I see the value of intercession by some lesser breed. Saint Sebastian, shot full of arrows? It seems like overkill. There is a term for what is happening to St Teresa in Bernini’s sculpture; it is ‘transverberation’. But she was pierced suddenly by the fiery lance of God’s love, whereas I was pierced by prearrangement, in a hospital just off the M25.”
hilary mantel is just so exactly herself. I love her writing.
“The hospital campus has one beautiful building, a curve of shining white. As you sight it you say, ‘What is that lovely thing?’ It is the mortuary.”
“I wonder, though, if there is a little saint you can apply to, if you’re a person with holes in them? I can hardly expect the Trinity to care about my perforations, and I see the value of intercession by some lesser breed. Saint Sebastian, shot full of arrows? It seems like overkill. There is a term for what is happening to St Teresa in Bernini’s sculpture; it is ‘transverberation’. But she was pierced suddenly by the fiery lance of God’s love, whereas I was pierced by prearrangement, in a hospital just off the M25.”
hilary mantel is just so exactly herself. I love her writing.
November 8, 2019
There is a term for what is happening to St Teresa in Bernini’s sculpture; it is ‘transverberation’. But she was pierced suddenly by the fiery lance of God’s love, whereas I was pierced by prearrangement, in a hospital just off the M25.
Mantel goes to hospital, and has surgery and complications and hallucinations, and writes about it. This is her edited, cleaned-up hospital diary, but it is short and brutal, and what a privilege to see it. Mantel is dismissive of Virginia Woolf’s writing on illness, as being insufficiently physical, and in her own writing here she is both metaphysical and aggressively fleshly. She will tell you the sound the black box makes as it sucks fluid from her wound—it “snorts like an elderly pug”—and what the room smells like.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 21, 2020
Telling it like it is
Having had 7 hours of open heart surgery (they thought it would take 3) and spent twice as long in hospital than planned, I recognised everything Hilary says about post-op recovery. Sometimes I laughed out loud in recognition - the 'hallies', your bodily feebleness, the elasticity of time. I was cared for by utterly excellent and cheerful NHS nurses. They deserve far better rewards than they get. But thank you, Hilary for describing it all so accurately and entertainingly.
Having had 7 hours of open heart surgery (they thought it would take 3) and spent twice as long in hospital than planned, I recognised everything Hilary says about post-op recovery. Sometimes I laughed out loud in recognition - the 'hallies', your bodily feebleness, the elasticity of time. I was cared for by utterly excellent and cheerful NHS nurses. They deserve far better rewards than they get. But thank you, Hilary for describing it all so accurately and entertainingly.
December 30, 2019
A fascinating insight into illness
I work as a nurse for the nhs and this short book gave me a new perspective on experiences of patients. A cleverly put and fascinating account of post-operative complications and neurological deficit. Would highly recommend to those working in healthcare or anyone who has experience (first or second hand) of delirium. Very interesting.
I work as a nurse for the nhs and this short book gave me a new perspective on experiences of patients. A cleverly put and fascinating account of post-operative complications and neurological deficit. Would highly recommend to those working in healthcare or anyone who has experience (first or second hand) of delirium. Very interesting.
January 13, 2011
Very powerful, an essay rather than a book, but didn't feel too brief or rushed.
November 30, 2019
Hospital
Yes would recommend this book if only to reassure patients that they are not going mad.very well written indeed.good good.
Yes would recommend this book if only to reassure patients that they are not going mad.very well written indeed.good good.
March 14, 2012
Quite random and very short, but a glimpse behind the curtain that is the fantastic Hilary Mantel
September 20, 2024
Read this to revel in Hilary’s impeccable, considered choice of words and similes. If you’ve undergone major surgery that did not quite go as planned, you’ll recognise much of her experience. I too remember waking up in a dimly lit room and seeing the surgeon standing at the end of the bed looking, well, a bit ruffled. Although my experience was not nearly as bad or as prolonged as hers. It’s really evocative of the jumbled mind and isolation of being in hospital.
And, as someone else has mentioned, her experience of “hallies” certainly brings Beyond Black to mind.
Edited to add: if you haven’t read Giving Up the Ghost, do. It provides a lot of context.
And, as someone else has mentioned, her experience of “hallies” certainly brings Beyond Black to mind.
Edited to add: if you haven’t read Giving Up the Ghost, do. It provides a lot of context.
June 2, 2020
It’s an essay, published in book form, so a quick read. There’s been criticism of Mantel for some of the things she says about Virginia Woolf, but I don’t have an issue with that. It’s a deeply personal account of her time in hospital, including details of her hallucinations. So the fact that she feels stronger than Woolf because she continued to write throughout the painful, opiate filled experience, says nothing at all about what a rational healthy Mantel actually thinks about mental illness.
Anyway, having experienced a very short stay in hospital following a much less horrendous operation, I found Mantels essay fascinating. I especially liked her musings on the difference between what visitors think a stay in hospital must be like for the patient and how the patient actually experiences it. Pain and concerns for your own personal health and welfare really do change everything.
Anyway, having experienced a very short stay in hospital following a much less horrendous operation, I found Mantels essay fascinating. I especially liked her musings on the difference between what visitors think a stay in hospital must be like for the patient and how the patient actually experiences it. Pain and concerns for your own personal health and welfare really do change everything.
January 3, 2020
Coming from some who has recently been in hospital some of the descriptions of staff and hospital care were completely accurate. I guess nurses and doctors are the same no matter where in the world you are.
The descriptions of her wounds were so visceral, I could almost feel her pain. There were many beautifully structured sentences, describing the mundane so perfectly.
My only gripe would be I felt it wasn’t long enough nor much depth, parts I felt were vague and I wanted to know more about her mental and physical well being. I really wanted to feel a connection to her but finished feeling a little cold and detached.
The descriptions of her wounds were so visceral, I could almost feel her pain. There were many beautifully structured sentences, describing the mundane so perfectly.
My only gripe would be I felt it wasn’t long enough nor much depth, parts I felt were vague and I wanted to know more about her mental and physical well being. I really wanted to feel a connection to her but finished feeling a little cold and detached.
December 20, 2019
I have named my pain...
And called it, not dog, but Virginia. For all this is an erudite and educated essay on illness, it seems to be as much about ill feeling as ill health. Maybe the cloyingly introspective world of the ill does that - set up ill-matched comparisons like pairs of ill-starred lovers, who knows? Well, we all do of course. But as Philip Larkin said, your pain is undoubtedly worse, but mine is happening to me. And as Larkin also said, other people’s illnesses aren’t interesting. I mention mine only to excuse the probably fullness of what I shall write. Ouch!
And called it, not dog, but Virginia. For all this is an erudite and educated essay on illness, it seems to be as much about ill feeling as ill health. Maybe the cloyingly introspective world of the ill does that - set up ill-matched comparisons like pairs of ill-starred lovers, who knows? Well, we all do of course. But as Philip Larkin said, your pain is undoubtedly worse, but mine is happening to me. And as Larkin also said, other people’s illnesses aren’t interesting. I mention mine only to excuse the probably fullness of what I shall write. Ouch!
January 10, 2020
This short book of extracts from her hospital diary. Is a fascinating insight into a master writers mind, when faced with a journey of serious illness, vulnerability and a hospital stay.
The depth of seriousness and horror are summed up beautifully with these words “The black ink, looping across the page, flowing easily and more like water than like blood, reassured me that I was alive and could act in the world.”
The depth of seriousness and horror are summed up beautifully with these words “The black ink, looping across the page, flowing easily and more like water than like blood, reassured me that I was alive and could act in the world.”
March 15, 2020
I didn’t actually realise this was more of a pamphlet size then book when I started it, but an interesting snippet all the same. This follows a sort of random diary of self-reflections during a period when Hilary was in hospital, seriously ill. It’s quite hard to review as there’s no real flow, but some good insights.
November 5, 2020
Quite different from Hilary Mantel's historical blockbusters like Wolf Hall and the Mirror and the Light - this is a very personal account of recovery from an operation. Rather rambling and strange in parts, it does contain some interesting insights - ends rather abruptly though. An interesting addition to the currently popular genre of hospital memoir.
December 3, 2021
An artist/writer's version of a 'diary' like account of her hospital stay/recovery following surgery...... it might be a little bit more 'elaborately' described than an 'average' person's diary..........but one can still relate to some of the similarities after sifting thru all the superfluous descriptions!
January 9, 2020
A really interesting read, Mantell's hospital companions seem very similar to the spirits in Beyond Black. Reading this helps give an insight into how she creates such vivid and disparate characters out of the past.
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September 30, 2022Hilary Mantel, a wonderful author, died recently. This is her journal (loosely speaking) from one of her many hospitalizations. It's a slim volume, detailing her hallucinations and mental and physical feelings.
January 8, 2023
A lengthy recovery after a major operation in a private hospital. This was a detailed description of the mental "hallies" experienced while on pain medication, driving off imagined demons with an elbow to the eye. This shows the reader the enormous physical and mental cost of major surgery.
January 31, 2020
An interesting insight into illness, but a bit vague and rambling for my taste.
October 9, 2020
A short read about Mantels experience in hospital. A bit strange.
June 21, 2022
Mantel is simply a genius. Short, perfect piece by a master.
December 8, 2022
Just an essay, not a book. I read it here: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n....
Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews