Messing with My Head

Jan 12, 2025 2:07 PM

Author:Howard Dully,Charles Fleming

Howard Dully was 12 years old when he was given a lobotomy. He was 56 years old when he found out why. The four decades in between tell a story of profound love and compassion.

In 1960 Howard's father and stepmother delivered him into the hands of the man who had invented the 'ice pick' lobotomy. Expelled from the mainstream medical community, his once-popular procedure now a grisly medical relic, Dr Walter Freeman was eager to turn this temperamental 12-year-old into a submissive boy - especially after hearing the terrible lies his stepmother told about him. Howard, told he was going into the hospital for tests, was instead given electro-shock treatments and a transorbital lobotomy. It took him 40 years to recover.

Howard Dully's escape from that dark place is a voyage of enormous hope and universal appeal.

Reviews

extraordinary

—— Mail on Sunday

Dully has written a forceful account of his survival

—— Observer

astonishingly free of rancour

—— The Times

...one of the saddest stories you'll ever read

—— New York Times

...his story is both moving and revolting...he faces his past honestly

—— FT magazine

truly stunning

—— Publishers Weekly

Kealey writes with enthusiasm and panache... exhilarating and exciting

—— Lancet

This is a compassionate, front-line report from what can often seem like alien territory.

—— Daily Telegraph Summer Reads

The practice of medicine is a way of living: vivid and engrossing, it stimulates senses physical and metaphysical...It is a rare skill for a doctor to be able to communicate this rich sensorium in writing. It is a delight to read the words of one who does it so well

—— The Economist

A superb account of life on the grisly front line of the operating theatre

—— Christopher Hart , Sunday Times

This slender, elegantly written memoir by a female surgeon, Gabriel Weston, is a fascinating, no holds barred account of life in the operating theatre

—— Independent

Through this insightful book, Weston succeeds superbly in communicating the fascinating brutal reality of a surgeon's life

—— Ian Critchley , Daily Telegraph

Gabriel Weston's story succeeds better than any I have known...more riveting and thought-provoking than any fiction

—— The Lady, Susan Hill

Glinting like a tray of instruments, her prose is satisfyingly precise

—— Victoria Segal , The Guardian

A curiously thrilling read, written with an elegance heightened by its clarity and economy

—— Elizabeth Day , Observer

A valuable and unflinching account, since it so clearly tells the truth

—— Christopher Hart , The Sunday Times

This book is mesmerising

—— William Leith , Scotsman

Her description of the struggle to remain individual and hence moral is her real achievement. This, to me, is what female writing has to do, and she does it with style and humour and beauty

—— Rachel Cusk

This much appreciated book should be a must-read for everyone who likes to travel, and should be translated into the languages of the world's tourism champions. It should also be a must-read for politicians and decision makers in development agencies to finally understand that tourism has lost the 'virginity' of a harmless leisure sector to develop into a dangerous global driving force which needs to be regulated and restricted.

—— Contours magazine

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