At the age of twenty-four, suffering from depression, novelist Matt Haig stood at the edge of a cliff and almost threw himself over. Although he pulled back from suicide the episode heralded years of mental illness. Depression is, he wrote in Reasons to Stay Alive, ‘total exposure. A red-raw naked mind. A skinned personality.’
Haig has written perceptively about mental illness, and both Reasons to Stay Alive and his new book, Notes on a Nervous Planet, have been bestsellers. I reviewed Reasons to Stay Alive when it came out in 2015 (you can read that review here) and I recently reviewed Notes on a Nervous Planet for the Sunday Times – you can read the review here.
Ian Critchley 