We often speak of doctors as heroes, martyrs, or victims. Drawing from forty years of experience on an emergency psychiatric ward, Paolo Milone offers a more complex—and more compelling—picture. He transports us inside Ward 77, where mental illness coexists with the ordinary lives of those who, at the end of their shifts, take their white coats off. 

In this unsettling, absorbing, and transformative memoir Milone challenges many of our assumptions about mental health, as we follow nurses, doctors, and patients along the hospital corridors, and we enter the shattered lives of those living on both sides of the invisible, arbitrary boundary, that separates the healthy from the sick.

Told with humour and compassion, Paolo Milone’s English language debut is a work of striking humanity that conjures lasting beauty out of the darkness.

"“One of the most unusual, beautiful, and poetic literary works on mental illness I’ve ever read.”" - La Repubblica

"“Full of irony, intelligence, and lyricism.”" - Corriere della Sera

"“A powerful hymn to compassion towards ourselves and others.”" - Grazia (Italy)