An astonishingly assured anatomy of his ordeal, by turns terrifying, mordantly funny and intensely moving. Many people suffer the pain and indignities of intensive medical treatment; but few have written about it with quite such alarming vividness or clarity
Mick Brown
Daily Telegraph
Watt is made of particularly fine stuff, possessed of a shining intelligence that allowed ... Read morehim to transcend his horrible circumstances. I cannot think of any book that so clearly describes the gap between sickness and health, the greatest gap that exists between human beings
Penny Perrick
The Times
A vivid account of what it's like to be terribly ill. The details of Watt's hospitalization are brilliantly recollected, and he writes with a songwriter's eye for the telling phrase
Robert McCrum
Observer
This is not so much for the music lover as for lovers of life
Andrew Smith
The Times
Five minutes after beginning Patient I knew I was going to be all right. Watt is such a responsible, deft writer that you feel straightaway you're in good hands. He doesn't want your sympathy - he wants to tell you something about the world. He makes you laugh. The thing is you can read this and not feel sorry for him. That's his achievement
William Leith
Mail on Sunday
As gripping as an airport novel and as gruelling as a horror story
Martin Aston
Q Magazine
Quiet elegance and ringing epiphanic lyricism. Watt's writing shares these qualities and his book is a nearly flawless telling of his unexpected and drawn-out battle with an extremely rare - and nearly fatal - illness
New Yorker
Ben Watt's harrowing, candid account of his near death from one of the world's rarest diseases lives on in the mind - a fine testimonial to his fortitude, his powers as a writer and the NHS.
William Boyd, Sunday Times
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