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Ill Feelings

Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Ill Feelings is a genre-blending memoir by Alice Hattrick that explores the profound impact of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome on both the author and her mother. Combining personal narrative with medical history and literary biography, Hattrick investigates their shared symptoms and the wider historical context of women's experiences with unexplained illnesses. The book features reflections on figures such as Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, and Florence Nightingale, weaving together personal and cultural histories to illuminate the challenges of living with a contested condition.
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Format: Paperback / softback
$3299
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Releases 29th September 2026 (Approx. Date) Pre-order  "Ill Feelings" now to secure your copy from our first shipment

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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This reflective and genre-defying memoir is well-suited for readers interested in medical humanities, chronic illness, women's history, and literary non-fiction. It will particularly resonate with those seeking nuanced perspectives on medically unexplained conditions and the cultural narratives surrounding health and pain.

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Ill Feelings blends memoir, medical history, biography and literary non-fiction to uncover untold case histories of medically unexplained and invisible illness.Β 

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

In 1995, Alice's mother collapsed with pneumonia. She never fully recovered and was eventually diagnosed with ME, or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Then Alice got ill. Their symptoms mirrored their mother's and appeared to have no physical cause; they received the same diagnosis a few years later.

Ill Feelings blends memoir, medical history, biography, and literary non-fiction to uncover both of their case histories, and branches out into the records of ill health that women have written about in diaries and letters. Their cast of characters includes Virginia Woolf and Alice James, the poets Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Emily Dickinson, John Ruskin's lost love Rose la Touche, the artist Louise Bourgeois, and the nurse Florence Nightingale.

Suffused with a generative, transcendent rage, Alice Hattrick's genre-bending debut is a moving and defiant exploration of life with a medically unexplained illness.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Critics praise Ill Feelings for its deeply personal and political examination of illness and invisibility. Francesca Wade highlights Hattrick's radical redefinition of illness narratives and admires the book's powerful voice and innovative form. Marina Benjamin commends the author's attentive exploration of chronic fatigue's mysterious causes and effects, noting how the narrative prompts readers to rethink established medical understandings.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781913097646

Publisher: Fitzcarraldo Editions

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 25 August 2021

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Fitzcarraldo Editions

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 125.0mm

Height: 197.0mm

Weight: 0g

Pages: 360

About the Author

Alice Hattrick's criticism and interviews have appeared in publications such as frieze magazine, ArtReview and The White Review. Alice's work has most recently been included in Whitechapel Documents of Contemporary Art: HEALTH (ed. BΓ‘rbara RodrΓ­guez MuΓ±oz, 2020) and Mine Searching Yours (Forma, 2020). They are the co-producer of Access Docs for Artists, a resource for disabled and/or chronically ill artists, curators and writers, made in collaboration with artists Leah Clements and Lizzy Rose. In 2016, they were shortlisted for the Fitzcarraldo Essay Prize. Ill Feelings is their first book.

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