Let Me Not Be Mad:
A Story of Unravelling Minds
A.K. BENJAMIN
(Bodley Head, 224 PP, £16.99)
Tablet bookshop price £15.29 • Tel 020 7799 4064

Medical memoirs are much in vogue at the moment, but it is fair to say that you will not read one quite like this. A.K. Benjamin is a clinical neuro­psychologist, whose speciality is treating patients with brain trauma, as a result of either an accident or an operation. This cohort of clients can be extremely challenging, often emerging with a personality completely ­different from their premorbid selves. It is the psychologist’s job to guide the patient and their families through these difficult waters, often with little hope of a successful resolution.

The bulk of the book is made up of individual case studies, which in another writer’s hands would be linear – patient presents with problem, therapist treats it and the result is success or failure. What you get with Benjamin is a convoluted stream of consciousness where the patient acts as a trigger for the author’s thoughts on anything from the power structure of the doctor-patient consultation to the psychopathology of triathletes.