{"product_id":"9781529035957","title":"W-3 : A Memoir by Yiyun Li","description":"`Dazzlingly and daringly written' Rachel Cooke, ObserverW-3 is a small psychiatric ward in a large university hospital, a world of pills and passes dispensed by an all-powerful staff, a world of veteran patients with grab-bags of tricks, a world of dishevelled, moment-to-moment existence on the edge of permanence.   Bette Howland was one of those patients. In 1968, Howland was thirty-one, a single mother of two young sons, struggling to support her family on the part-time salary of a librarian; and labouring day and night at her typewriter to be a writer. One afternoon, while staying at her friend Saul Bellow's apartment, she swallowed a bottle of pills.   W-3 is a vivid - and often surprisingly funny - portrait of the extraordinary community of Ward 3 and a record of a defining moment in a writer's life. The book itself would be her salvation: she wrote herself out of the grave.   Originally published in 1974 and rediscovered forty years later, this is the first edition of W-3 to be published in the UK. With an original introduction by Yiyun Li, author of Where Reasons End.   `W-3 is one hell of a debut' Lucy Scholes, Paris Review`Howland is finally getting the recognition that she deserves' Sarah Hughes, iNews\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Paperback \/ softback","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43204626841778,"sku":"9781529035957","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/products\/9781529035957.jpg?v=1705362725","url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/9781529035957","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}