Right in the Head 2023

A stroke happens when a lack of oxygen causes damage to tissues in the brain. It is often an extremely confounding event that can shatter one's personality as well as one's relationship with other people and the world. A stroke triggers complex questions about the role of the brain in human behaviour, but also challenges conventional ideas about reality. Based on first-hand experience, Right in the Head is a personal exploration of trauma and a critical investigation of art and science to understand the relationship between human beings and their brains. Encompassing psychogeography, the neuronovel, a confessional and a love story, Groes explores how stroke victims and their loved ones are confronted with the meaning of life.

Taking the shape of an existential journey, the book traces the transformation of the writer's relationship not only to mental health, language and literature, but to life itself.

"A highly enjoyable, multi-perspectival stroke memoir that is trenchant and critical about the way 'neuromania' - like 'genomania' before it - leads people into a bogus search for a total explanation. Very engaging." Will Self

"Bas Groes has returned from illness with deepened and expanded empathy, hope, and appreciation of the glorious challenges that beset humanity. This book is a log of his journey; beautiful, wise, compelling, erudite, and awestruck by the 'self-jesting mystery' of the mind." Niall Griffiths

"At once touchingly intimate and wide-ranging, a beautifully written narrative of Groes's stroke and recovery that is engaging, moving and superbly informative. It is a book about the mystery of consciousness, the workings of the brain, creativity, and the overcoming of adversity." Adam Roberts