Beyond the High Blue Air: A Memoir - Softcover

Spinney, Lu

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1782398899 ISBN 13: 9781782398899

Publisher: Atlantic Books, 2017

Synopsis

Aged 29, Lu Spinney's son Miles suffered a devastating head injury and was left in a coma. With unflinching honesty, Lu Spinney has written a passionate, urgent account of the years following her son Miles's accident, revealing his existence imprisoned in a limbo of fluctuating consciousness, at times agonizingly aware of his predicament.
With unfailing honesty and courageous prose, Lu Spinney's memoir explores the very nature of self and the anguish of witnessing Miles's suffering as she and her family come to realise that, although he has been saved from death, he has not been brought back to a meaningful life.

About this title

Review

My heart is being ripped out by Beyond the High Blue Air ... It's a devastating, important memoir that fills me with love for the author, Miles and his siblings. Author: Cathy Rentzenbrink

Lu Spinney has a tragic story to tell. The circumstances are unique. But what she expresses - disbelief, hope, anger, dismay - is universal. And the ethical questions she raises are vitally important. Most important, she writes beautifully. Author: Blake Morrison

This profoundly moving and grippingly readable book brings to mind The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby. Source: The Sunday Times

Impossible to read this eloquent, heart-breakingly well-written record of a mother's loss without realising that the people you love are all also standing on the precipice edge Lu Spinney describes so well. Author: Francis Spufford

This book is a work of the highest literary skill and heroic courage born out of what for most would be unendurable, and wholly silencing, maternal pain. To read it is to feel, sympathetically, both that pain and admiration for the woman who has written so eloquently through it. Author: John Sutherland

Beautifully written... What is striking and remarkable about this is how movingly Spinney manages to get inside her son's mind... Highly recommended Source: The Bookseller

A courageous story... a tribute to maternal strength, understanding and love that forces us to question our preconceived ideas about humanity. Source: Literary Review

This unflinching look at what happens when death is prevented but life is not worth living is heartbreaking and important. Source: Stylist

This is not an easy book. Spinney's eye is unflinching and she spares us nothing in this increasingly hopeless tale... Doctors and lawyers need to read this book and think about the impact of unsuccessful life-saving interventions... we have no plan of what to do with bodies that house damaged brains, or how to cope with the philosophical and emotional difficulties inherent in caring for someone who is there but not there. Author: Cathy Rentzenbrink Source: The Sunday Times

Rivetingly written Source: The Sunday Times

From the Author

Lu Spinney was born in Cape Town and spent her childhood on a farm in the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal, later moving with her family to the Indian Ocean coast north of Durban. After university, she left South Africa to live in Nice and Paris, before settling in London.

About this edition

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1782398899
• ISBN 13: 9781782398899
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240