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The Case for Love: My Adventures In Other Minds
An exhilarating journey into the unfathomable depths of the human mind, from the acclaimed author of Let Me Not Be Mad.
What does it take to care for a stranger? Really care.
The Case for Love is a reflection on a career treating patients with brain trauma - people whose thoughts and feelings are largely unknowable - and how and why those treatments failed.
It is a reconstruction of three haunting cases in which the patients were tragically misunderstood - and an attempt through the power of the imagination to understand and make amends.
It then describes the author's abandonment of his career and his tumultuous quest for healing and redemption.
It is also a story of intimate relationships, pets, fatherhood and heartbreak, culminating in a moment of psychedelic transcendence and rebirth.
It is about the overpowering need for connection - and how, increasingly, we are trapped in ourselves.
It is a meditation on empathy and an act of atonement.
It is a unique, hybrid work of clinical case study and pure invention that destroys the boundary between fact and fiction in order to bring us face-to-face with the shocking, liberating truth.
__________
Praise for Let Me Not Be Mad
'Imagine a gonzo Oliver Sacks communing with Edward St Aubyn's Patrick Melrose, R.D. Laing and the spirit of Kafka's 'The Country Doctor', and you still won't quite have the flavour of this wild and strikingly original book' William Fiennes
' clever, troubling, restless, honest, dishonest; one of the best portraits of madness and clinical practice I've read' Olivia Laing
'A perfectly extraordinary - not to mention extraordinarily perfect - tense Hitchcockian psychodrama. I have rarely read a more haunting and enthralling account of a descent into madness. An important, profound and fascinating book' Stephen Fry
'Blackly comic, warmly compassionate, a unique take on the human mind offering uncomfortable universal truths' Stewart Lee
'A slow-burn belter of a book ... terrific ... so finely described, the result has the terse force of a classic short story' Roddy Doyle
'Exhilarating ... dazzling ... a miraculous feat' Guardian
What does it take to care for a stranger? Really care.
The Case for Love is a reflection on a career treating patients with brain trauma - people whose thoughts and feelings are largely unknowable - and how and why those treatments failed.
It is a reconstruction of three haunting cases in which the patients were tragically misunderstood - and an attempt through the power of the imagination to understand and make amends.
It then describes the author's abandonment of his career and his tumultuous quest for healing and redemption.
It is also a story of intimate relationships, pets, fatherhood and heartbreak, culminating in a moment of psychedelic transcendence and rebirth.
It is about the overpowering need for connection - and how, increasingly, we are trapped in ourselves.
It is a meditation on empathy and an act of atonement.
It is a unique, hybrid work of clinical case study and pure invention that destroys the boundary between fact and fiction in order to bring us face-to-face with the shocking, liberating truth.
__________
Praise for Let Me Not Be Mad
'Imagine a gonzo Oliver Sacks communing with Edward St Aubyn's Patrick Melrose, R.D. Laing and the spirit of Kafka's 'The Country Doctor', and you still won't quite have the flavour of this wild and strikingly original book' William Fiennes
' clever, troubling, restless, honest, dishonest; one of the best portraits of madness and clinical practice I've read' Olivia Laing
'A perfectly extraordinary - not to mention extraordinarily perfect - tense Hitchcockian psychodrama. I have rarely read a more haunting and enthralling account of a descent into madness. An important, profound and fascinating book' Stephen Fry
'Blackly comic, warmly compassionate, a unique take on the human mind offering uncomfortable universal truths' Stewart Lee
'A slow-burn belter of a book ... terrific ... so finely described, the result has the terse force of a classic short story' Roddy Doyle
'Exhilarating ... dazzling ... a miraculous feat' Guardian
176 pages, Hardcover
Published July 1, 2021
6 people are currently reading
30 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 9, 2021
It can look like another memoir of a psychologist's experience of complex cases but, as with his first book, it was for me so much more than that. Intimate and moving but also, raw and caustic at times, I found myself immersed in his journey and taken by the ingenuity with which he describes the complexity of our connections with others and how compassion can be lost in places where it is needed the most.
January 8, 2022
I found this book confusing. I was more interested in his patients and their story, their damage. I found the story of Davis fascinating and would have loved to hear more and maybe understood more. Instead what I got was a lot of him, the author, interwoven, with the patients' stories in a Semi-Stream of consciousness way. Particularly the last chapter, weaving 'reality' with fantasy and drug induced hallucinations. Carlos Castaneda did that better. I guess it was just not what I was expecting or in the mood for.
July 5, 2021
Another quite amazing book by AK Benjamin. The way he weaves his mindful tapestry is spell binding. Lost in the maze of his characters I find myself partly in his world and partly watching from a mountaintop.
Please stop what you are doing right now AK and write another immediately. I just can’t wait.
Please stop what you are doing right now AK and write another immediately. I just can’t wait.
August 9, 2021
Great follow up to Let Me Not Be Mad. Benjamin is an excellent writer.
August 16, 2021
Great Book by Benjamin. Again, a Tour de Force by this original and different British Author.
August 3, 2021
Highly intelligent, articulate, intense, genre-defying, ‘The Case for Love’ is a wildly original, occasionally disquieting but ultimately moving investigation of trauma. The beautifully written final section will live long in the memory. You won’t read another book like it this or any other year.
July 2, 2021
Excellent book of Genius A. K. Benjamin. Let’s hope he keeps writing more books. Madness and suffering are other faces of God, another mask for love.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews