Guardian Review

Brain surgeons such as Henry Marsh, the author of this startling and moving memoir, longlisted for the Guardian First Book award, have to live, breathe, operate and make urgent decisions in full awareness of a terrible dilemma: if they open the skull they might save the patient's life, but a slip of the scalpel can cause appalling disability, which, as Marsh puts it, can be much worse than death. Passing a young colleague in the intensive care unit, just after visiting a patient rendered comatose through surgery, he remarks: "Terrible job, neurosurgery. Don't do it." It's this disarming candour that makes the book such an enthralling read. Marsh is not interested in giving us the brain surgeon as superman; he wants to shows us the dreadful pressures under which he has lived throughout his professional life. But this is not a gloomy book, it is a testimony of wonder - the wonder Marsh has felt through being able to operate on the brain. There is no forcing of a narrative arc or a happy ending, just the quotidian frustrations, sorrows, regrets and successes of neurosurgical life. Gavin Francis - Gavin Francis Brain surgeons such as [Henry Marsh], the author of this startling and moving memoir, longlisted for the Guardian First Book award, have to live, breathe, operate and make urgent decisions in full awareness of a terrible dilemma: if they open the skull they might save the patient's life, but a slip of the scalpel can cause appalling disability, which, as Marsh puts it, can be much worse than death. - Gavin Francis.