From the accident to when the protagonist leaves hospital a week later, doctors and nurses, roommates and other patients on the neurosurgery ward accompany him in a forced and entirely dependent existence while their lives gradually intertwine and they become close.

The account has a fast rhythm and is absorbing. We get a strong idea of the sense of impotence and the strain required to keep thoughts at bay, of the trust that the patient necessarily has to concede, and the discretion with which he finds the sense of self that goes beyond immodesty and the obscenity of the body on show.

The stories of the other patients are told with kindness and detachment, never erring on the pathetic; while the way he finds to support his fellow patients is authentic and described with feeling.

It is a brief but intense and full account, subjective but never self-indulgent, elegant and deeply felt.

A tribute to resilience.