Time Out Of Mind
By (Author) Jane Lapotaire
Little, Brown Book Group
Virago Press Ltd
22nd April 2004
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
362.196810092
Short-listed for Mind Book of the Year Award 2004 (UK)
Paperback
320
Width 126mm, Height 200mm, Spine 16mm
318g
'Who are you when your brain is not you' Jane Lapotaire is one of the lucky ones. Many people do not survive, let alone live intelligently and well again once they have suffered cerebral haemorrhage. In the long haul back to life - 'nearly dying was the easy bit' - she's learned much, some of it very hard lessons. Some friendships became casualties; family relations had to be redefined; and her work as an actress took a severe battering. The stress of living is felt that much more keenly when 'sometimes I still feel as if I am walking around with my brain outside my body. A brain still all too available for smashing by noise, physical jostling, or any form of harshness'. But she has survived and now believes it herself when people say how lucky she is. This is a very moving, darkly funny, honest book about what happens when the 'you' you've known all your life is no longer the same you.
'As a work of literature, Jane Lapotaire's book is possibly the most ambitious of them all ... a brave and bracing book' The Mail on Sunday The dimension added by the question of self, and the skill of the writing, make it a compelling read' Independen
Jane Lapotaire has been a leading member of the National Theatre and the RSC for more than thirty years. She holds a visiting fellowship at Sussex University and teaches at the Actors' Centre and the British American Drama Academy. She lives in Warwickshire and south London.