My Name Is...

Description

The tenacity Campbell brought to bear in politics is matched here by his gripping inhabitation of his characters. Stunning. - Independent on Sunday She likes a drink. Everyone has a problem. Hannah is seventeen. A drink makes her feel better. For a bit. But then she feels worse and the pain inside comes back. This is the story of Hannah's addiction as seen by the people around her - her mum, her little sister, her best friend, her best friend's mother, her mum's boyfriend... Powerful and passionate, their voices shed a sometimes shocking, sometimes tender light on a life veering terrifyingly off course. 'Campbell has taken the vilified, sprawling, drunken youths caricatured in tabloid headlines and, in one young girl, showed us the damaged human beings beneath.' The Times 'This superb book is sad, terrifying and uplifting in equal measure. Every parent, every young man or woman and anyone who "likes a drink" should read it.' Anne Robinson

Alastair Campbell was born in Keighley, Yorkshire in 1957, the son of a vet. After graduating from Cambridge University in modern languages, his first chosen career was journalism, principally with the Mirror Group, a career interrupted in the mid-80s by a nervous breakdown and the diagnosis of a drink problem. Campbell worked his way back to become a political editor and when Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party, he asked Campbell to be his press secretary. He worked for Blair - first in that capacity, then as official spokesman and director of communications and strategy - from 1994 to 2003, and returned in 2005 to help Labour win a third election. He now splits his time between writing, speaking, consultancy and charity, as chairman of fundraising for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, and a leading ambassador for the mental health campaign, Time to Change. He lives in North London with his partner of 33 years, Fiona Millar. They have three children. His interests include running, cycling, bagpipes and Burnley Football Club. He has published five volumes of diaries, including the bestselling The Blair Years, a memoir on depression, The Happy Depressive, a novel about fame, Maya, and his first acclaimed novel about mental illness, All in the Mind.

This superb book is sad, terrifying and uplifting in equal measure. Every parent, every young man or woman, and anyone who "likes a drink" should read it. -- Anne Robinson The tenacity Campbell brought to bear in politics is matched here by his gripping inhabitation of his characters. Stunning, * Independent on Sunday * My Name Is... offers a compelling insight into addiction from the outside in, giving a 360-degree look at the cause and effect of the illness. It possesses an emotional weight for each speaker - an impressive feat when some of these characters feature for less than four pages. * Irish Examiner * It is a sad and terrifying story, well-researched and timely... Campbell's idea of telling the story through the self-contained testimonies of every person who came into contact with Hannah during her spiral into self-harm is clever and affords the reader a 360 degree view of what it is to deal with a vulnerable deceitful alcoholic in denial... Campbell has taken the vilified, sprawling, drunken youths caricatured in tabloid headlines and, in one young girl, showed us the damaged human beings beneath. For that he deserves much credit. * The Times (Saturday Review) * A gripping account of an alcoholic teenage girl * Guardian *