First published 2002
Charles Watkins wanders London's Embankment at night, penniless and speaking incoherently. Police find him and take him to a hospital, where doctors sedate him heavily. Watkins tells them extraordinary stories of drifting across oceans, discovering strange coastlines, and soaring through the sky on a massive white bird. Hospital staff identify him as a Cambridge Classics professor. His family and friends visit, each conversation revealing more about what drove him to this breakdown. The doctors work to return him to normal life, but Watkins resists their treatment. He clings fiercely to the vivid inner reality he has created. His fantastical world becomes more real to him than the ordinary existence everyone wants him to accept. The battle intensifies between medical intervention and his determination to protect the magnificent realm inside his mind.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, psychological-thriller, academic
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: Cambridge, London
Period: 20th-century
252 pages · Paperback · Flamingo
Content warnings: mental-illness