Arnold Thomas Fanning had his first experience of depression during adolescence, following the death of his mother. Some 10 years later, an up-and-coming playwright, he was overcome by mania and delusions. Thus began a terrible period in which he was often suicidal, increasingly disconnected from family and friends, sometimes in trouble with the law, and homeless in London. Drawing on his own memories, the recollections of people who knew him when he was at his worst, and medical and police records, he has produced a beautifully written, devastatingly intense account of madness—and recovery, to the point where he has not had any serious illness for over a decade and has become an acclaimed playwright. Fanning conveys the consciousness of a person living with mania, psychosis and severe depression with a startling precision and intimacy. Mind on Fire is the gripping, sometimes harrowing, and ultimately uplifting testament of a person who has visited hellish regions of the mind.
About the Author
Arnold Thomas Fanning's stage plays include McKenna's Fort. Mind on Fire, his first book, was included in the Irish Times Books of the Year and was the Irish Independent's Memoir of the Year,
Praise For…
Mind on Fire is a truly powerful, arresting, haunting account. Arnold Thomas Fanning has reckoned with the darkest matter of his heart and mind, and I challenge anyone not to be moved by that. - Sara Baume -
[A] painfully intense, courageous and gripping account of [Fanning's] journey to the underworld of madness and back. This is a brave and instructive book. - - Irish Times
In this strange and singular book, Arnold Thomas Fanning mercilessly excavates the infernal underworld of his own years of madness. As reminiscent as it occasionally is of John Healy's The Grass Arena, and even of Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, the book is ultimately not quite like anything else I've read, and brought me as close to the lived reality of mental illness as I have ever been. It's a significant achievement: a painful, inexorable work of autobiography, whose existence is its own form of redemption. - Mark O'Connell -
This is an extraordinary memoir about how it feels to be depressed, delusional, desperate - - Observer
Extraordinary. An account of mental illness, grief, delusions, homelessness, a fractured family relationship ... and all while trying to recover and create. Superb writing on a frequently difficult subject. - - Sinéad Gleeson
Incredibly important - Emilie Pine, author of Notes to Self -
A spellbinding memoir that should prove both moving and hopefully cathartic for the reader - - RTÉ Culture
Wonderful - Joseph O'Connor - Irish Times Books of the Year
Told in tight and immediate first-person, and imbued with a startling momentum that ratchets unnervingly, Fanning's publishing debut ... is a significant achievement and should be a talking point in publishing this year - - Irish Independent
Fanning's debut book lays it on the line in a deeply personal and compelling chronicle of his descent into depression and his way back out. - - RTE Guide
