Love Lay Down Beside Me and We Wept - by Helen Murray Taylor (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

love lay down beside me and we wept is Helen Murray Taylor's lyrical memoir of devastating mental illness.

Helen Murray Taylor was finding her feet as a young doctor and trying to maintain some semblance of a life in the shadow of a punishing schedule when she witnessed a horrific road traffic accident. The impact of this fatal collision caught Helen off guard and had terrible repercussions. Both her career and her mental health took a battering. After a succession of other distressing events left Helen emotionally shattered and seriously depressed, she was admitted to a psychiatric ward and sectioned under the Mental Health Act. At her lowest, she almost succeeded in taking her own life. love lay down beside me and we wept sprang from these difficult times, from Helen's months on the ward and the psychological upheaval of being restrained against her will, and from the challenge of being a doctor turned patient, but also from the moments of pure comedy and unexpected comradeship that she encountered there.

This is a profoundly moving and masterful account of one woman's physical and psychological breakdown, it's a tribute to the love that supported her through it, and it's an offering to the reader who might find comfort or understanding in this story.

Review Quotes

"Like When Breath Becomes Air - where the skilled doctor becomes patient - Helen Murray Taylor's remarkable experience is deeply moving; yet her story is uplifting, never maudlin, and written with real kick. She comes across as the heroic survivor she is - often wry, and a brilliant anatomist of her own turbulent struggle." -- Alan Warner, author of The Stars in the Bright Sky

"This smart, honest, and sometimes bleakly funny memoir captivated me from the first chapter. Helen Murray Taylor takes us on a devastating journey of mental ill health which, whilst it provides no easy cure or complete answers, nevertheless leaves us with renewed faith in the strength of the human spirit. A courageous and intelligent book, I heartily recommend it." -- Elissa Soave, author of Ginger and Me

"This is a memoir that asks questions of what memory is, what it means for our identity when we lose it and how love can fill in our memory blanks. Rich with incredible psychological and emotional veracity, this book is a compelling case for the redemptive possibilities of writing." -- Andy West, author of The Life Inside

"Vivid, candid, compelling, mesmerising. This is the sort of vital memoir that increases the store of empathy in the world." -- Kevin MacNeil, author of The Stornoway Way

"Stark, witty, redemptive: Helen Taylor's powerful account of meltdown and healing is as moving as it is unflinching. It's rare to encounter a writer this gifted who has experienced the abyss from within, and survived, and now has the skill and the courage to tell us about it." -- Conor O'Callaghan, author of We Are Not In the World

About the Author

Helen Murray Taylor is the author of the novel The Backstreets of Purgatory (Unbound, 2018). She was brought up in the Lake District and the north-east of Scotland. Before becoming a writer, she worked as a junior doctor in Glasgow and then as a research scientist in Oxford and London. The profound effects of a severe psychiatric illness, during which she was sectioned under the Mental Health Act, led her away from her intended career. Writing played a crucial role in her recovery. Her memoir love lay down beside me and we wept tells part of this story. She currently lives in the south of France.