Leaving Home

“Reading this memoir is like sitting on the floor in a room with a friend who spreads over the carpet their dog-eared, yellowing, predigital photo albums and spills out a box-file marked ‘The Past.’ It’s an immersive experience. . . . This is an uplifting book, funny and sad and hopeful. It’s a collaborative book, too. Haddon’s gentle, curious voice asks us questions about his life, and ours, shares his difficulties, speaks aloud those doubts he believes he will never settle.”
—Jeanette Winterson, The New York Times

“Leaving Home turns a troubled childhood into a gripping memoir. . . . Charts [Haddon’s] tragic upbringing with wit and grace . . . . The deeper the reader gets into this unusual and gripping book, the more remarkable Haddon—anxieties, insights and all—seems. . . . Despite the darkness underpinning the book—his pregnant wife’s near-fatal bicycle accident, Haddon’s own breakdowns, his battle with long covid, his father’s Alzheimer’s, his mother’s cold cruelty, his sister’s recurring nightmares—he rescues the reader from bleakness time and again with his wry, subtle humor. . . . Haddon is very funny.”
—Laurie Hertzel, Washington Post

“Capturing difference of perspective is perhaps Haddon’s literary superpower . . . I was moved to tears. . . . Leaving Home is heartbreaking, hilarious, and richly hopeful, especially for other oddball creatives. The life he paints is one of quiet steadiness, creative expansiveness, and a love for all that is different and interesting. The inclusion of visuals into the text adds richness and intimacy. It’s a book I expect to return to for quiet triumphs to buoy my creative spirit through all sorts of dark times.”
—Christopher Bigelow, Chicago Review of Books

“What, then, to do with the nostalgia—the sense of longing for the sights, sounds, smells and artefacts of the 1970s—that grips and confuse him? One answer is to put those thoughts and feelings into a work like this—an incredibly detailed, painful, funny, horrifying and exhilarating record of how to live beside what has happened.”
—The Guardian

“Haddon is a witty and melancholic guide to his own life. . . . Haddon balances light and dark subjects and is amusing. . . . There is much to savour about the inside life of such a creative mind, with the copious drawings and family photographs sitting amid the text (accompanied by Haddon’s sardonic captions) adding enormously to the enjoyment of his book. Haddon has written a highly captivating book about escape, survival and the problems of processing a torrid past. If you can cope with searing honesty, there is much to relish in this fullcolour image of dysfunctional family life.”
—The Independent

“Lavishly illustrated. . . . Delicious.”
—The Spectator

“I loved Leaving Home. It made me honk with laughter at times, and feel incredibly moved at others. I found it tender, addictive, informative and unlike anything else – and brilliantly illustrated. It’s a gem.”
―Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“I loved this funny, melancholy and arrestingly original memoir of an artist’s coming into being. It also made me quite badly want a Walnut Whip.”
―Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent and Enlightenment

“His distillation of the fear and powerlessness of childhood is so deeply moving and beautifully drawn. . . . The most tender, transporting, creative and beautifully written tale I have read all year. In Leaving Home, Mark Haddon turns words, images and his trademark empathy upon himself to conjure all the repressed emotion, strained relationships, shyness, humour and orange formica of his childhood in 1970s provincial England. Simply glorious, from start to finish.”
―Rachel Clarke, author of The Story of a Heart

“As well as being startlingly―sometimes shockingly―honest, this memoir is consistently funny and consistently heartbreaking. The result for me was a kind of emotional whiplash, pain then laughter, warmth then brutality―all in service of rendering the complexities of family life in full colour.”
―Joe Dunthorne, author of Submarine

“Pieces together family photographs, illustrations, and vivid biographical snippets for this panoramic memoir. . . . Utterly transfixing. . . . It’s a strange, beautiful work that exposes the inner workings of a creative mind.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[Haddon] writes with uncanny humor and endearing candor as he leapfrogs from childhood incidents to more recent struggles and discoveries. . . . The illustrations—his drawing, paintings, collages, and sculptors along with photographs and postcards—mirror his writing in their mix of zest, wit, and pain. No matter how grim his experiences, Haddon turns anguish into compassion and kindness. As he reflects on his hardtested loyalty to his parents and his love for his sister, wife, and children, Haddon is pithily hilarious, deeply insightful, and very moving.”
—Booklist

“In Mark Haddon’s moving collage-like memoir, significant moments in the author’s life add up to a wondrous whole and provocative worldview. . . . Haddon’s bracing, raw honesty reveals his struggle with mental illness, his love for his wife and two children, his views on spirituality, and the life-giving force of his writing. . . . Haddon’s recollections create a moving cumulative effect; he gives readers the space to savor his epiphanies and arrive at their own.”
—Shelf Awareness