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| "The book. Having the book. It's really good, isn't it?" |
Henry firstbroke down aged twenty. He was rescued by fishermen from an estuary, sent to a mental hospital and ten days later was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Voices, he said, he told him to do it. His father, Patrick, a foreign correspondent hard to contact in Kabul, had little inkling of impending trouble until his wife Jan phoned to tell him that his son had had a breadown. Henry, and art student, dirty and disorganised, went barefoot, dismantled his phone, believed clocks controlled his life, and was arrested for climbing a railway viaduct. He quickly fell into bewildering mental illness.
Narrated by both Patrick and Henry, this is the extraordinary story of the eight years since Henry’s descent into schizophrenia—years he has spent almost entirely in hospitals—and his family’s struggle to help him recover. With remarkable frankness, Patrick writes of Henry’s transformation from art student to mental patient and of the agonising and difficult task of helping his son get well. Any hope of recovery lies in medication, yet Henry, who does not believe he is ill, secretly stops taking it and frequently runs away. Hopeful periods of stability are followed by frightening disappearances, then relapses that blend into one another, until at last there is promise of real improvement.
In Henry’s own raw, beautiful chapters, he describes his psychosis. He vividly relates what it is like to hear trees and bushes speaking to him, voices compelling him to wander through countryside, loneliness of life within hospital walls, harrowing 'polka dot days' that incapacitate him, and finally, his steps towards recovery.
'Henry's Demons' is a powerful, compelling account of mental illness and its impact on both a sufferer and their family. It is a story of a father's love for his son, and an inspiring testament to the power of family to save and sustain each other through adversity, one written with great humanity and grace.
Read an interview with Henry and his father at:
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