Mayhem
A Memoir
Published on 7. September 2017
Book
Hardback
208 pages
978-0-241-25926-9 (ISBN)
Description
A Sunday Times Book of the Year
'Riveting, clear-sighted and exceptionally articulate... Her literary and psychoanalytic fluency gives the book an impact that feels arrestingly honest... Heartbreaking' Daily Telegraph
'This is a fierce, lyrical, and lucid memoir that asks agonizing questions about guilt, innocence, and judgment and reminds us how difficult it can be to untangle one from the other' Siri Hustvedt
'Powerful, spare [and] striking' Observer
'Unique and haunting' Sunday Times
'What gives this book its astonishing power is not the guilt, but the intelligence and literary skill. Beautifully structured... Rausing sets the scene with painterly delicacy and then steps back to analyse the implications of what she has revealed' Guardian
A searingly powerful memoir about the impact of addiction on a family
In the summer of 2012 a woman named Eva was found dead in the London townhouse she shared with her husband, Hans K. Rausing. The couple had struggled with drug addiction for years, often under the glare of tabloid headlines. Now, writing with singular clarity and restraint the editor and publisher Sigrid Rausing, tries to make sense of what happened to her brother and his wife.
In Mayhem, she asks the difficult questions those close to the world of addiction must face. 'Who can help the addict, consumed by a shaming hunger, a need beyond control? There is no medicine: the drugs are the medicine. And who can help their families, so implicated in the self-destruction of the addict? Who can help when the very notion of 'help' becomes synonymous with an exercise of power; a familial police state; an end to freedom, in the addict's mind?'
'Riveting, clear-sighted and exceptionally articulate... Her literary and psychoanalytic fluency gives the book an impact that feels arrestingly honest... Heartbreaking' Daily Telegraph
'This is a fierce, lyrical, and lucid memoir that asks agonizing questions about guilt, innocence, and judgment and reminds us how difficult it can be to untangle one from the other' Siri Hustvedt
'Powerful, spare [and] striking' Observer
'Unique and haunting' Sunday Times
'What gives this book its astonishing power is not the guilt, but the intelligence and literary skill. Beautifully structured... Rausing sets the scene with painterly delicacy and then steps back to analyse the implications of what she has revealed' Guardian
A searingly powerful memoir about the impact of addiction on a family
In the summer of 2012 a woman named Eva was found dead in the London townhouse she shared with her husband, Hans K. Rausing. The couple had struggled with drug addiction for years, often under the glare of tabloid headlines. Now, writing with singular clarity and restraint the editor and publisher Sigrid Rausing, tries to make sense of what happened to her brother and his wife.
In Mayhem, she asks the difficult questions those close to the world of addiction must face. 'Who can help the addict, consumed by a shaming hunger, a need beyond control? There is no medicine: the drugs are the medicine. And who can help their families, so implicated in the self-destruction of the addict? Who can help when the very notion of 'help' becomes synonymous with an exercise of power; a familial police state; an end to freedom, in the addict's mind?'
Reviews / Votes
Fierce, lyrical, and lucid memoir -- Siri Hustvedt A profoundly articulate and harrowing memoir of a family grappling with addiction... I was impressed and moved -- A. M. Homes A short, intense and moving memoir... a poignant and at times harrowing account that testifies to the resilience of the human spirit * Tatler * Powerful and spare... her elisions and prevarications have a striking effect * The Observer * Such a unique and haunting story to tell * The Sunday Times * What gives this book its astonishing power is not the guilt, but the intelligence and literary skill. Beautifully structured... Rausing sets the scene with painterly delicacy and then steps back to analyse the implications of what she has revealed * The Guardian * A deeply felt memorial to a lost brother...a finely written memoir * Literary Review * Riveting, clear-sighted and exceptionally articulate...heartbreaking...her literary and psychoanalytic fluency gives the book an impact that feels arrestingly honest * Daily Telegraph * Touched by its bravery, sincerity and the frequent beauty of the writing * The Times * In this slim, stoic memoir... Rausing thoughtfully, painstakingly, works a deep groove into the stubborn surface of certain bedevilling questions: "How do you write about addiction?"... I nodded and sometimes cried. I wanted to invite the author over for tea * The Millions * This is a fierce, lyrical, and lucid memoir that asks agonizing questions about guilt, innocence, and judgment and reminds us how difficult it can be to untangle one from the other -- Siri Hustvedt, author of 'The Blazing World'More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 144 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
346 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-25926-9 (9780241259269)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Sigrid Rausing is the editor of Granta magazine and the publisher of Granta Books. She is the author of two previous books: History, Memory, and Identity in Post-Soviet Estonia, and Everything is Wonderful, which was short-listed for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize.
She is an Honorary Fellow of the London School of Economics and of St Antony's College, Oxford. She lives in London.
She is an Honorary Fellow of the London School of Economics and of St Antony's College, Oxford. She lives in London.