Overview

In 2006, Richard Gwyn was given a year to live unless a suitable liver donor were found. A novelist and poet, he lost nine years of his life to vagrancy and alcoholism in the Mediterranean, principally Spain and Crete. This memoir is an account of his lost years; the damage done to his liver; redemption via friendship, imagination, intellect, love and fatherhood; recovery; living with viral hepatitis, and the life-saving gift of a hepatic graft.

Full Product Details

9780956012555

Table of Contents

Reviews

Takes us through a Madame Tussauds thronged with addicts, misfits, lovers, all the extreme people who may (or may not) have been part of [Gwyn's] past. Lloyd Jones, New Welsh Review Blake's 'Proverbs of Heaven and Hell' tells us that the road of excess leads to the gates of the palace of wisdom. He doesn't mention the damage - self-inflicted or random - along the way. Richard Gwyn's memoir - his own down-and-out vagabondage around the Mediterranean - rectifies these lacunae and takes us on a terrifying, funny, and erudite journey through alcoholism, insomnia, and liver disease to a redemptive and self-accepting wisdom. It's one hell of a good read. Des Barry Gwyn is always worth reading. Scott Pack

Author Information

Richard Gwyn, novelist and poet, lost nine years of his life to vagrancy and alcoholism, in the Mediterranean, principally Spain and Crete. His publications include The Colour of a Dog Running Away which was published in the UK, USA and in many translations, and Deep Hanging Out, both novels; two academic titles on illness, the body and communication, and several poetry titles, the most recent being Sad Giraffe Cafe. He is convenor of the MA in the Teaching and Practice of Creative Writing at Cardiff University, and lives in the city with his wife and two daughters.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available