History of Present Complaint (First Cut)

After a traumatic psychotic episode, a nameless young woman recounts past psychiatric crises in an attempt to make sense of her present and fight for her future.

A genre-defying debut collection of prosetry, History of Present Complaint reveals the devastating reality of living with chronic mental illness. HLR writes of the human experience in her distinctive style: knock-out blows of blistering truths are tempered with shots of sardonic British humour, and the lines between fact and fiction, safety and danger, sanity and insanity are blurred beyond recognition through her bold poetry and sharp prose. History of Present Complaint is a damning depiction of under-funded public mental health services and serves a vital role in giving a voice to the voiceless, shining a light on the darkest corners of the human condition and forcing the reader to see what has been there all along.

A brutal and beautiful work exploring mental illness, grief, suffering and mortality, History of Present Complaint will appeal to fans of Plath’s The Bell Jar, Juliet Escoria’s Black Cloud and 4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane.

“A brave and raw debut that transgresses boundaries and will evoke a deep-seated grief and ache within any reader… combines brutal reality with stunning imagery to convey trauma, heartbreak and grief in a way which Plath’s The Bell Jar never achieved… purposeful imagery and structural formatting is not gratuitous but explores the disassociation and obsession of a panicked mind, to reveal the frightening hold mental illness can have. A masterpiece to be read, savoured and experienced anew.”
— Kristiana Reed, author of Between the Trees and Flowers on the Wall

“HLR could possibly be one of the most exciting poets of her generation. A collection of guttural cries from the unravelling depths of a human being, this book is horrifying. The purity of this collection is its lack of pretention, self-consciousness and formula… it’s real, and it pulls you by the throat into the vortex that is trauma. Written by someone who is more naturally gifted at writing than 99.9% of poets out there today, this isn’t something you can forget, and you’d better not try.”
— Candice Louisa Daquin, Senior Editor, Indie Blu(e) Publishing