This “game-changing memoir” by the nature writer and broadcaster Horatio Clare tells the story of his descent into madness and mania, said Helen Brown in The Daily Telegraph. Clare’s slide started in late 2018, at a time when he was regularly smoking cannabis to help cope with stress and exhaustion. On a family skiing holiday in Innsbruck, he became convinced that he was a “major player in a covert international conflict”, and that the resort was swarming with secret agents. Returning home, his delusions worsened: as “part of a mission to secure global peace”, it was his duty to marry Kylie Minogue – but only after faking his death by driving his Toyota into a Yorkshire reservoir. Clare was eventually sectioned, and was treated in a psychiatric hospital. It is remarkable that a “mind so recently dominated by straight-to-DVD fantasies” is capable, two years later, of writing about them with “such acute self-awareness” – not to mention gentle humour.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
