Strange Places: A Memoir Of Mental Illness

"I′ve been to places that no one else on this planet will ever go. Me‚ I′ve lived for a short time as a werewolf. As a vampire. As a revolutionary. As a psychic. As a magician. As someone who cannot be hurt by physical force. As someone who can speak to the dead... I have lived as Jesus Christ. I have been he who knows all. You see‚ all this is true‚ because‚ for a while‚ it was all real. What hurts‚ what really hurts‚ is that I will never feel so alive as I felt the night I ran barefoot from hospital‚ hearing vampires rustle in the trees above‚ seeing a war zone around me‚ seeing battalions and guarded castles in the houses to either side of me‚ the air rife and thick with magic‚ crackling with an energy that exists on the far boundary of the human mind‚ which‚ once crossed‚ we′re not supposed to return from.I made it back when I shouldn′t have‚ so I′m lucky. But no matter what else happens in life‚ no matter what mountains I climb‚ no matter how close I come to death‚ nothing will ever again make me feel so alive as I felt that night. Nothing."

In 2006 Will Elliott had his first novel THE PILO FAMILY CIRCUS published. It won five literary awards and great acclaim‚ nationally and internationally. What nobody knew was that the young author of that work of terrifying fantasy had just recovered from a psychotic episode and been diagnosed as a schizophrenic. This is his memoir of that harrowing −−− and enlightening −−− time.