The Art of Binding People - by Paolo Milone (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

From one of Italy's most brilliant psychiatrists, a moving and transformative journey into the most mysterious, heartbreaking, and awe-inspiring corners of the human mind

We speak of doctors most often as heroes, martyrs, or victims. Drawing from forty years of experience working in an emergency psychiatric ward, Paolo Milone offers a more complex--and more compelling--picture. With prose at once direct and lyrical, he transports us inside Ward 77, where mental illness coexists with the ordinary lives of those who, at the end of their shifts, take their white coats off and have to remember to buy milk.

In this unsettling, absorbing, and transformative memoir Milone vividly conveys the curiosity and passion, the recurring sense of exasperation and dismay, and the humility and sense of wonder of those who have chosen to "look into the abyss through the eyes of the other."

The Art of Binding People challenges many of our assumptions about mental health, as we follow nurses, doctors, and patients along the hospital corridors, we listen to their screams and silences, and we enter the lives of those living on both sides of the invisible, arbitrary line that separates the healthy from the sick.

Told with humor and compassion, Paolo Milone's English-language debut is a work of striking humanity that conjures lasting beauty out of the darkness.

Review Quotes

"One of the most unusual, beautiful, and poetic literary works on mental illness I've ever read... The Art of Binding People stands alone in contemporary Italian literature for its style, themes, and depth: it's a Spoon River Anthology of mental illness."--Nicola Lagioia, la Repubblica

"An astonishing debut and a brilliant new perspective on mental health... Full of irony, intelligence, and lyricism."--Corriere della Sera

"Disquieting, moving, often funny... This is a memoir like any other: a powerful hymn to compassion towards ourselves and others."--Grazia (Italy)

"A memoir that reads like poetry... Courageous and profound, this book will break your heart--and lift it too."--Il Fatto Quotidiano