Patient: The True Story of a Rare Illness - Softcover

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 him 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)

The critically acclaimed memoir of Ben Watt's battle with a rare illness