A Kind of Magic

by Anna Spargo-Ryan

A memoir about anxiety, our minds, and optimism in spite of it all

Where do mental illness stories begin?

Anna’s always had too many feelings. Or not enough feelings – she’s never been quite sure. Debilitating panic. Extraordinary melancholy. Paranoia. Ambivalence. Fear. Despair.

From anxious child to terrified parent, mental illness has been a constant. A harsh critic in the big moments – teenage pregnancy, divorce, a dream career, falling in love – and a companion in the small ones – getting to the supermarket, feeding all her cats, remembering which child is which.

But between therapists’ rooms and emergency departments, there’s been a feeling even harder to explain … optimism.

In this sharp-eyed and illuminating memoir, award-winning writer Anna Spargo-Ryan pieces together the relationships between time, mental illness, and our brain as the keeper of our stories. Against the backdrop of her own experience, she interrogates reality, how it can be fractured, and why it’s so hard to put it back together.

Powerfully honest, tender and often funny, A Kind of Magic blends meticulous research with vivid snapshots of the stuff that breaks us, and the magic of finding ourselves again.

PRAISE for A Kind of Magic

'The magic in this necessary and beautiful book is how deftly Spargo-Ryan shines her light on life's dark materials to offer comfort and inspiration to the rest of us. A must read.' – Sarah Krasnostein, author of The Trauma Cleaner and The Believer

'Anna Spargo-Ryan writes with the kind of searing insight and beauty that both shatters your soul and also pieces it back together. I hope she never stops.' – Clementine Ford, author of Fight Like A Girl and How We Love

'With humour, generosity and courage, Anna Spargo-Ryan narrates an experience that is so often impossible to put into words. By taking us inside therapy sessions, hospital wards, and cars, rooms and self-talk that act as entrapment, we are given an opportunity to learn, to empathise and to love. A Kind of Magic should be read by anyone wanting to understand mental illness, and for anyone with mental illness wanting to be understood.' – Kylie Maslen, author of Show Me Where It Hurts

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Audiobook, Mental Health, Psychology, Health, Australia

338 pages, Paperback

Published October 5, 2022

About the author

Anna Spargo-Ryan is an award-winning Melbourne writer. Her memoir, A KIND OF MAGIC, is about anxiety, learning to be a person, a bit of self-forgiveness, love, death-defying panic and generally trying to have a happy life.

Her novels are THE GULF and THE PAPER HOUSE.

Anna won the 2016 Horne Prize for her essay "The Suicide Gene". You can find her other work all around the internet.

Reviews

[Elise Kumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best thing I can say about this book is that I have never related less to a story about mental illness.

As a mentally ill person I’ve read a lot of books about mental illness and about people with mental illness. And in reading A Kind of Magic I realised something. So many times mental illness is flattened out into simply, to put it very simply, having a hard time.

And it’s not that mental illness isn’t having a hard time. It is. I have a hard time. I’m having a hard time right now as I write this. A mentally ill kind of hard time.

But there are so many different ways of having a hard time and it’s too easy to assume that we know what somebody else’s having a hard time might mean. What it might look like. What it feels like.

For a long time I thought I was on a journey away from my mental illness and toward some kind of mental wellness. But like many others I’ve found myself to be somehow seeing the same familiar landmarks again and again and hoping, desperately hoping, that I’m travelling in a circle and not spiraling slowly but surely toward my own extinction.

Depression. Anxiety. Having a hard time.

Sometimes I just can’t get out of bed. It’s all too hard. I just need a break from my life. I don’t eat. I lie down in the shower and pretend that I might drown. I’m not coping. I’m not fucking coping. Fuck. I need this to be over and I can only think of one way out.

Depression. Obviously?

When I’m in a new place my heart races. My palms sweat. My throat feels tight. And I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t think. I can’t think I can’t decide I want to go home. I’m not coping. I’m not coping. I’m not fuck fuck coping fucking coping.

Anxiety. Obviously?

I’d already started to unpeel both of those labels off to some extent, by the time I read A Kind of Magic. But it’s hard to feel certain about your own reality when the people who are supposed to be experts at these things are so certain that they know better. My thinking is distorted, apparently. And I couldn’t possibly know that. So it’s lucky, isn’t it, that somebody was able to tell me.

At some point I started to try to insist that none of the things people were suggesting were at at all helpful. That things were far worse than I was able to display. That when I say I’m not coping I mean I’m not FUCKING COPING FOR FUCKS SAKE.

Bipolar Disorder. Borderline Personality Disorder. Having a very hard time.

Something changed when I reached my thirties. I’d been seeing psychologists and psychiatrists and trying different medications and different therapies for more than half my life by then. And maybe I was older and doctors gave me a tiny bit more respect that I might know a little bit about myself than they did. Or maybe I was finally confident enough to advocate for myself a little better. Or perhaps I just landed on the one doctor who actually listened. Or maybe it was that I decided I was just fucking sick of spending two months unpacking my abusive childhood every time I saw a new psychiatrist and I demanded that my new doctor treat me, this present me, and help me deal with now.

ADHD. Autism.

But somehow, sometimes, I still doubted. Maybe I’m making it up? Maybe I’m just trying to get away with being some kind of lazy fuck. Maybe my hard times aren’t as hard as I’ve made out and maybe I’m just the normal kind of mad.

And this week I read Anna Spargo-Ryan’s book about her mental illnesses. Spargo-Ryan’s deeply viscerally honest book about her brain and her relationship with herself struck me so deeply precisely because it is so unlike my own.

I suddenly am pretty sure that I’ve never been anxious in my entire life.

And I think perhaps that there is no normal kind of mad. That even when we use the same words to describe our inner worlds that maybe that’s just because we’re working from the same extremely limited dictionary.

That my unable to get out of bed isn’t your unable to get out of bed. That my can’t leave the house isn’t your can’t leave the house. That my breakdown in the pasta aisle isn’t your breakdown in the pasta aisle. We’re all having a hard time. But it’s not the same hard. And it’s not the same time.

And maybe that’s obvious to other people. But it gives me enormous hope and strength. To say, for sure, that you don’t know my experience better than me. Or even the same. That even my most distorted view of my reality is more authentic than anything you can see from outside.

My life is immeasurably easier since I was diagnosed with ADHD ten years ago and then Autism this year. It turns out that it’s much easier to get a handle on things when you know what those things are.

In some ways I’m less hopeful than I’ve ever been. I’m no longer on a journey. I’m not aiming for some kind of recovery. My neurodivergence is baked into my brain and probably my DNA. And I work, these days, on making life easier for myself instead of trying to get better at dealing with times being hard.

And it brings me immense comfort and confidence to be reminded, so clearly, that all of our experiences are our own.

I’ve spent so much of my life travelling endlessly in the same circle. screaming in frustration and terror when I see that tree again. You know. The one that means I might not get out of this alive. And a few years ago I decided to sit down by that tree and refuse to get up again. And sometimes I doubt myself. I think maybe I’m just giving up. I’m giving in to my illness. That I’m losing the battle. That maybe self acceptance is succumbing and I’m just not thinking right. That if I really tried I could get there. That I’m not special and I’m not different. I’m just having a hard time.

But this week I was reminded that all of our illnesses are different. That if our journeys were the same the path would have been well-worn and signposted long before now.

That maybe you can strike off boldly in a new direction. That maybe I can just sit down here for a little while.

Because the traits and behaviours in the diagnostic manuals don’t tell us what we’re going through. That the disorders and categorisations don’t explain why or who or how we are.

And I think almost none of us have ever been able to explain, to fully communicate, what our hard times are.

This book isn’t special because Anna Spargo-Ryan is brave. I no longer know what the word brave even means. I’ve been called that too many times for simply existing. And for admitting life is hard.

This book is special because Anna Spargo-Ryan’s mental illness isn’t mine. And while she and I and many others share what we have in common and share our words and stories with the world and with each other. We are not each other.

The best thing that I can say about this book is that I have never related less to a story about mental illness. And the highest recommendation I can give is my hope that you won’t relate to it either.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author lays herself completely bare in this courageous memoir, focused on her lifelong mental health struggles. It's only a fairly short book - about 7 hours audio - so despite sitting on the fence for the first couple of hours (mainly due to the unexpected dumping of so much clinical information) I opted to continue and was glad that I did. I've learned a lot and although I don't understand what it's like to walk in the author's shoes, I'd like to think I can be more sympathetic to people around me facing similar battles.

[Megan Maurice · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly moving and thought-provoking memoir. The writing is so beautifully poetic and woven through with so much emotion. I loved every word!

[K.J . · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anna Spargo-Ryan prefaces her book, ‘A Kind of Magic’ by gently asking; “Are you sure?” Like a friend who tugs on your arm just as you’re about to go into that movie you’ve been desperate to see but it’s a really intense movie and the reviews have been great, yet cautionary, so that friend stops you and says, “Are you sure?” then gives you time to think for a second.

I did think for a second, actually. Perhaps Anna’s journey to understand herself, her commentary about mental illness, her insight, this whole book would be too much of a mirror. Maybe one of those bendy mirrors like at the Show, but a mirror nonetheless. I would see too many reflections in that bendy mirror. Yet I knew this book would be amazing because Anna is amazing and I wanted to thread my soul into her sentences.

And they are beautiful sentences. Anecdotes of raw. Memories of pain. Sentences that are purposefully fuzzy about the edges like SpecSavers got your prescription wrong. Sentences that roll along, as if tumbling down a grassy hill, recounting an event that seems simple and everyday, and then a word or a phrase appears, at a pointy sharp part of the paragraph, at the end of the memory, like the unexpected snap from a Christmas cracker. You know something’s coming; Anna makes sure, brilliantly, that you feel the fuzzy humidity of that memory to prepare you for the moment that pushes air from your lungs. There are so many of those crack-snap moments in ‘A Kind of Magic’. Memories of childhood, adulthood, just then, right now. Sharing one of those memories in this review would be like writing a spoiler tweet and having people yell forever in the replies. But on so many occasions as I was reading, I wanted to reach into the pages and clutch Anna’s hand. “Hold on,” I’d say.

Anna writes that anxiety is not a collection of symptoms. Of things that happen. Anxiety is more like a shopping list of things you can’t do. Like using a can opener because a tiny piece of metal might break off and fall into the can and what if the can is already full of tiny bits of metal? It would be lovely to visit Coles with that shopping list to purchase the ‘things you can’t do’. But no supermarket sells the remedy to ‘I can’t walk to the letterbox because the concrete has new weeds which will cover the path while I’m walking on it and what if the weeds are poisonous and there’s a spider in the letterbox but there’s a gas bill so I have to walk back past the poisonous weeds to get tongs from the kitchen but I can’t’. They should sell that. In aisle 7, next to the Cruskits.

There are many people who will read that letterbox example, and smile fondly, remembering the game where you have to create the most outlandish scenario to use as an excuse for not doing something. People with severe anxiety slay at that game. LOL! The joke going around is that people with severe anxiety make great OH&S risk management officers, because they predict the worst case scenario. Right? Get it? LOL. Ha ha.

If you Google ‘best excuses to get out of doing something’, most of the sites are filled with anxiety examples. Like ‘I promised to help a friend clean the toilet. She doesn't like doing it alone; she gets nervous that she will fall in! She has some kind of toilet phobia’. Ha ha LOL! Viewing anxiety as humorous, or the punchline, minimises the disorder. That friend with the toilet? It is absolutely possible that she believes the toilet will liquify while she’s on it, then she will liquify, and then she’s not inside her body.

Anna says; “Sometimes it doesn’t feel like there is space for the real stuff. We need anxiety to alert us to imminent danger, to tell us when to run or hide, to know when to call an ambulance or perform CPR. The ‘disordered’ part of an anxiety disorder is the lack of rational input, not the anxiety. It means we feel anxious ‘for no reason’.”

Like the friend who can’t clean her toilet alone.

In moments of not-anxious, there is optimism. Not-anxious moments are teeny-tiny because all the other anxiety is Big, and not optimistic.
Anna describes the tiny not-anxious moments, like walking the dogs to the corner of the street, as memories filled with optimism that might grow. If left alone.

I understand this. My psychiatrist once told me to go outside, and look at five different faces every day. “It will settle your mind. Make you optimistic about your day,” he said. I asked if my three cats counted. But I tried his strategy because I was prepared to find not-anxious moments to make optimistic memories that might grow.

However, it is difficult to make optimistic memories that might grow when “Fear remembers things so much more clearly than we do.” Anna says later in the book that fear is irrational but irrationality doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Fear is real therefore it’s right. It has a voice because it whispers. And what it whispers, and yells, and screams, is the truth. Until it’s not the truth. Sometimes it takes a long time to move from one to the other.

Medical professionals have taken time to catch up with the brains they see in their practice. The brains sitting outside their person who is sitting on a chair and staring at the doctor who is staring back. Perhaps this word works for you, they say. Anna makes the point that when a mentally ill person doesn’t have the word for the reason their brain is outside their body, then being given one by someone who should know is a good start. It means that even though your brain is outside your body, and you are exceptionally frightened, at least this new word gives you a sense of self. What a horrible situation. Having a sense of self by fearing yourself.

Having a word, then another word, and another, to explain why, and how, but mostly why, doesn’t diminish the fear. It just makes it easier to see.

For many years, Anna explains, she didn’t have words. Words to give the doctors who didn’t understand so they finally prescribed a pill from the showbag of the day.

“We invent new ways to describe the indescribable and offer them to a doctor who we hope won’t misinterpret them.”

Words for the family members, their eyes wide with concern. Words for herself about herself for a sense of self.

The need for words to hold the fear at bay, and find that optimism is shown in the heart-wrenching-est of the many heart-wrenching moments in the book;
“What did I mean? ‘I want to die,’ I said, but that wasn’t right. I said, ‘I wish I didn’t exist.’ Closer. ‘I don’t want to be dying.’ The distinction was confounding. ‘I want to have died.’.”

When you have the words, and sentences to put them in, Anna says that “Telling someone about your mental illness is rarely just that first step. It’s hardly ever just: ‘I have depression, or anxiety, or bipolar…”
I nodded frantically as I read that. It is never just a first step. The telling about accumulates. It’s forever, and fluid, and forever, and not-fluid, and so much like coming out of the closet as my lesbian self that the similarities made my breath catch in my throat.

Coming out makes people uncomfortable. Mental illness makes people uncomfortable. Suicidal thoughts that are verbalised make people uncomfortable. Mentally ill people learn to mask themselves, their words, with humour, because then they relieve the discomfort. They break the tension. But the tension needs to be there because ‘please hear my sad-awful-terrible thoughts but here’s a laugh at the end so maybe I was joking but I wasn’t so please hear my sad-awful-terrible thoughts’.

Mental illness is sometimes not believed.

“There’s a degree to which people imagine mental illness is performative, I think. It can’t be as bad as all that. You must be exaggerating! You say you can’t leave the house, but what do you mean? Even my parents used to say things like, ‘I bet you’d manage to go to…”

The other end of the scale is inspiration porn. “You’re so mental but such an inspiration for others.” “You’re so normal. How inspirational!” because masking is celebrated, you see. Become a meme. Post on Insta. “You’re a mental health influencer! So inspirational!”

Or the not-at-all inspiration porn. “Get on with it.” “Just think happy thoughts.” “There are people worse off in Africa.”
A mentally ill person is not inspirational. They are tired and difficult to understand. And so very afraid.

Anna has written a poignant memoir, opening her brain for public viewing. We wander through her gallery of memories and not-memories and kind-of-memories. She guides us to each exhibit, where we read the artist’s statement which explains the meaning, the reason, the words and not-words that answer the questions asked by mental health professionals so they can tick boxes.

For a moment, I wished I’d written this book. Only for a moment. Because I realised that Anna wrote this book for herself. It is, after all, a memoir. Maybe she wrote it for those who see themselves in the words. Maybe she wrote it for those who might like the cover but peek inside. Maybe she wrote it for those who want to read the book because someone important to them has found their own words.

It is impossible to live in a mind that is convinced you have no place with the living, but Anna Spargo-Ryan’s astonishing memoir about anxiety, our minds, and optimism illustrates beautifully that convincing a mind to hold its body close is its own special kind of magic.

[Jasmine Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

To publish a book about your life story is daunting for sure; but to publish one that includes aspects of yourself that society has been known to judge harshly, it’s terrifying as well as brave on a whole new level. I loved how Anna just told everything as it was, not a thing was sugar-coated. I recognised parts of myself in Anna’s words and it was scary but relieving in a weird, wonderful way. I did not fully understand just how complicated the human brain could be until I read this book. My heart goes out to her and all that she has been through. I sincerely hope that Anna knows her story is appreciated, it is important and it will help so many people. Although mental illness is laid bare throughout this story as an ugly, destructive and horrific thing; there is always a fragment of hope shining through to remind the reader, (as well as Anna herself) that things work themselves out in the end. To call this book inspirational and perspective changing is an understatement.

[Kym Chapple · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utterly exquisite

[Theresa Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this one over the course of a week, driving to and from work, and I really enjoyed it. Being a memoir, it was particularly engaging to listen to this being read by the author. It added this layer of intimacy to the entire experience, as though I was sitting down with Anna herself over a series of catchups, deep diving into her life.

This is a really honest memoir, one that doesn’t hold back, one that doesn’t apportion blame, nor make excuses, or generally gloss over things in favour of throwing a pity party for one. Anna deep dives into her own experiences of mental illness, supplanting this with research about the brain and how memory works. I liked all of the science stuff she included, memory has long fascinated me, so this was incredibly interesting to listen to.

I’m not going to lie, at times, this was a tough read. Anna’s struggles are real, and confronting, even frustrating, cyclical, persisting for decades. If you struggle with mental illness yourself, this might not be the right read for you. If you live with or have ever cared for someone with a mental illness, parts of this will be difficult to read, but also quite possibly illuminating, a double-edged sword, to hear what it might be like for the person you love who is struggling beyond comprehension. Anna’s experiences with our healthcare system will leave you in despair, and honestly wondering how people navigate it without a support person.

Sometimes I had to take a break from listening, other times I kept listening long after my drive had ended, carting my phone around with me to finish whatever chapter or section it was that had me riveted. I talked about the book, a lot, with my partner. He could probably count it as a book he’s read as well now, I went on about it so much. It’s just that kind of book. It leaves its mark on you as a reader. How brave of Anna, to put herself onto the page like that. I am filled with admiration for her.

[Sharondblk · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a while to get into this book, possibly because it is a bit too close to home, possibly because I thought it was going to be a kind of trauma narrative, which it's not. Although I'm not really sure what this book is - it's certainly Anna's experience with mental illness. She gives us some glimpses of her life that isn't just the illness, but this is definitely the focus of the book. At times it felt disorganised and not as chronological as I like things to be, but I think this might be part of the point.
This book is not a self help book, or a manual to getting through mental illness, or even how to get help for mental illness. I'm glad I listened to it, and that's about as coherent as I'm going to get.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most courageous book I’ve ever read.

Not because Anna so publicly shares the details of the way mental illness has woven through her life, although this can’t be underestimated.

But because of the deep, real and sometimes terrifying personal reflection and self-discovery it takes to know yourself well enough to write a book like this. Some people never do this work, let alone write a book about it.

I devoured this book in a single day, so enthralled in Anna’s story and her deeply honest but also joyful and funny writing.

If you are looking for a book absolutely brimming with hope, you’ve found it.

[Natasha (jouljet) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brutally honest, generous, and raw account of Anna's experience with mental ill health. Every page is filled with visceral and oppressive symptoms, that you feel in your heart as you read along. It's a maybe the closest those of us who don't experience these things, can get to it.

Anna explores her unreliable memories, and memory of these memories. Of her first feelings of dissociating experiences, of thinking she might die, of not wanting to go on. Deep and real feelings of hopelessness, paralysis, darkness, and despair. The fear, the overwhelm. The all encompassing of the symptoms of mental instability.

Seeking help, and finding barrier after barrier to accessing good mental health care, it laid out in painful truth. The need to know how to describe the incomprehensible, in order to tick the boxes, to meet the right axis, to get maybe the right support at that moment. Or maybe just a sandwich and the promise of a call to check in in two days.

A self-described "functioning mental", Anna manages to have a family, relationships, keep a house running, albeit not on weekends, and sometimes have jobs she went to, all through this. Being a mum, a partner, a daughter, all whilst being very unwell.

An incredible insight into the feelings within feelings of a long string of mental illness diagnoses. Of living through, working through, hiding through it all, to keep going. To get to a point where she could write it all down, in such a brilliant way, and feel such hope.

A book everyone should read, but especially those of us working in mental health settings, anyone who knows someone experiencing mental ill health. Everyone.

[Steph · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started reading this book and laughed out loud on the first page. Then it started stressing me out so I took a little break. Then it was interesting and somewhat comforting. This cycle continued throughout, but in smaller circles as I settled into the style.

It’s not like any other book I’ve read, and it made me realise that one reason writing about mental illness is hard is the experience is so repetitive: panicking and/or stuck, then vaguely functioning, then repeat indefinitely. I read somewhere that the reality of mental illness is “terrifying, heartbreaking and excruciatingly boring” (and I agree) so I was impressed with the diverse descriptions of what anxiety, panic attacks, psychosis and depression actually feel like.

Overall it was a good, funny, comforting, and stressful read.

[Jasper Peach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anna Spargo-Ryan is smart, funny, fun and kind. Her razor sharp wit is as much a part of her as her skin, and how much of a friend she is to all of us traversing the laneways of mental illness. This is a triumphant book about the nuances of memory, trauma and hope - Spargo-Ryan is the victor in this book: buoyed with love and a desire to live.

My sentences are all running together because I have too many thoughts and it’s not possible to articulate them properly. I feel protected and held, having spent time in this life held in this phenomenal book. I am so very glad Anna wrote this, and it is a shining light of privilege to have been able to hear her read it to me.

Bloody ripper. Fave bit was hearing her say “pew pew pew!”

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. This, was excellent. Many of the descriptions of experiences and moments were so intensely specific that I was amazed at the details. Though Anna’s memory is spotty and imperfect, it’s still impressive!! My favourite parts of this memoir were when we were invited into the emotions that came with the experiences and the personal analysis of them. At times the switch to a passage of more ‘textbook’ information - while important and helpful for our understanding - distanced me from the heart of the story so I plodded slower through those brief sections, wanting to understand and learn but finding it more of a struggle to process than the more personal narrative.

[Han Reardon-Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

All kinds of brutally and beautifully relatable, full of the balm of recognition that the experiences that feel most isolating are so often shared, in ways that can be impossible to express (but somehow Anna has found the words). Thank you to Anna for writing such a brilliantly honest and generous mental health memoir. My own brain that comes apart and back together again (the latter with difficulty) felt deeply soothed by your words of both pain and triumph.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in sparkling prose, that zips along. A memoir is never an easy thing to compose, structure and share, and living with mental illness certainly doesn’t make it easier.

I’ll be looking out for more of this author’s work.

[Nic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mental unwellness is complex; thank you for sharing your story.

[Rebekah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Anna Spargo-Ryan's novels (and her Tweets), so it is no surprise that I find her memoir fantastic. But love is not quite the right word for this raw, honest, courageous, beautifully written, visceral description of mental illness. It is confronting and at times hard to read - I had to overcome my knee-jerk reaction of "not all doctors" at some of the retellings of terrible interactions with medical practitioners - but I learned things about myself, and perhaps more importantly, about how to better help my patients. Everyone - but particularly GPs, psychologists, psychiatrists, and mental health nurses - should read this book.

[Janelle Martinz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely eye opening!!

[Panos Dionysopoulos · Rating 5 out of 5]

It works both as an autobiography as sorts and as a guidebook to anxiety, dissociative disorders, mental health 'lingo', and generally how to be a supportive helpful person to friends or family you have with these or similar issues. It genuinely helped me to better understand my own bipolar (and even how my crohn's affects it, which I really wasn't expecting). One thing people don't mention enough is how funny Anna is as a writer as well, which makes it a pleasure to read.

I recommend this for anyone, full stop. It's a helpful book, a pleasurable read and actually important in the current landscape. I hope it keeps getting the attention it deserves.

[Daniel Qualischefski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anna’s viscerally honest mental illness story, while uniquely her own, helps to illuminate and elucidate the stories of others. The book rightly chastises the lack of accessible, competent and consistent medical and psychological care for people in Australia.
Despite this overarching content, Anna’s writing (and audiobook reading) style is simultaneously euphonious, percussive and calming, and filled with wry wit and humour. I was immediately drawn into her nonlinear, emotional anecdotes which holistically paint the portrait of a woman making her way through life.

[Vikki Petraitis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read A Kind of Magic in just a couple of days. Anna is a beautiful writer who shows us her soul and allows us to see her struggles. I wanted to reach through the pages and give her a hug.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anna Spargo Ryan takes you on a journey of both self-reflection and education as she works slowly through details of her own life while educating and providing insight on the facts. She's unashamedly honest, brutally so at times and pulls no punches in defining the facts of her life as simply what they are.

There's heartbreaking moments that will have you on the verge of or simply bursting into tears as you step through the intricacies of some of these moments. And there's joyful moments too.

Anna writes with a warm, honest, whimsical voice that flows seamlessly from weaving a story you can't put down to sharing insight without ever speaking down to the audience.

There's a lot of courage in there, and a lot of emotion. It is an in-depth look at a life lived with mental illness and of the extraordinary woman behind it all. It is as much memoir, as it is informative and educational.

Can not recommend it enough.

[Ika Willis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fatally flawed by the author/narrator's need to be cool. Made me cry angry tears.

[Cass Moriarty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anna Spargo-Ryan is known for her successful writing career (two novels, winner of the inaugural Horne Prize Essay, Non-Fiction Editor at Island Magazine), but it is her most recent endeavour, the memoir A Kind of Magic: A memoir about anxiety, our minds, and optimism in spite of it all (Ultimo Press 2022), which has ignited a discussion about mental illness, anxiety, panic, psychosis, paranoia, fear and of course hope.

The book is cleverly divided into relatively recent sections with her therapist, interspersed with her history, each chapter headed with a different diagnostic definition of an aspect of living life with a mental illness (often in reality a very poor or inadequate definition).

One of the opening quotes is from The Age: ‘Anna Spargo-Ryan doesn’t seem at all like a miserable person’, and this is true of so many people who manage to mask their symptoms, or to simultaneously have terribly traumatic and melancholic feelings whilst also being able to function as if they are ‘fine’. Spargo-Ryan interrogates her family history (is there a ‘suicide gene’ in her genetic make-up?), her childhood experiences, her extended family members’ mental health issues, the ambivalence and depression and inexplicable behaviour of her adolescence and as a young adult, her time as a new (young) mother and now as a parent to older children. Each stage of life has given her new challenges and she has undergone severe swings of being unable to cope (and being in therapists’ rooms or emergency departments or hospital beds), to periods when she not only copes, but thrives, on both a personal and professional level, with a spark of optimism that continues to glow quietly and occasionally erupts into flame.

She examines the dynamics between time, memories, our brains, our hearts, our emotions, our stories and our relationships. With sharply observed insight, she sets her own experience against the reality of the mental health system and details the failings and cracks into which people may fall. As with all good memoirs, A Kind of Magic is brutally honest, revealing uncomfortable behaviours and feelings (that many readers may relate to); it is also tender and warm, questioning and curious, and wondrously, often it is hilariously funny. The author has the ability to bring the reader in close to her own life, her own mind, her own reality, and to see from her eyes. The terror of panic, despair, anxiety, and the awkwardness of truly dissociative behaviour is rendered comprehensible through her illuminating depiction of her own experience, and her forensic analysis of her thought processes. Obviously, if you have experienced similar issues, this book will speak to you. But it is also a great manual for those who have friends or loved ones or partners or parents or children with mental health issues, giving readers a carefully tended lens to see what may have been previously blurry or not clearly understood.

The content of this book is brilliant but so is the writing. Spargo-Ryan’s skills as an essayist and writer elevate the book from an interesting depiction of mental illness to a fascinating, joyful, humorous, page-turning, moving and warm story of what it is to be human, to have feelings, to be misunderstood (even by yourself) and to take small steps forward to better mental health, or even just to acceptance and tolerance of difference, and how to better cope with those difficulties. The writing is tight, authentic, informative without being didactic, touching without being sentimental, and enlightening. I enjoyed this book so much (even though ‘enjoy’ feels like the wrong word) because it provided me with a unique insight and perspective, and because I could appreciate the skill and care with which it was written. It is courageous and extraordinary, as it says on the cover, but it is also lyrical and highly readable. It contains a special kind of magic, optimism and hope that will be a beacon for many readers, a light that shines brightly with encouragement and compassion.

[Averil · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a memoir that holds nothing back about the realities of mental illness. Indeed, the author opens with a note advising that it may not be for everyone and that it's okay to not read it if it's too much.
I didn't find it too much; however, I frequently felt 'seen' in particular observations Spargo-Ryan makes about anxiety, and in the mental health system. In particular, her descriptions of having to 'prove' your issue/s to various medical professionals in order to get help, and the need to already have the right language to describe how you are feeling in order for them to slot you into the right box. Her descriptions of the many ways in which she was dismissed are devastating - as she points out, if a cisgender white woman struggles to be heard, where does that leave anyone with one or more minority statuses?
Spargo-Ryan's mental illness is at the more extreme end of the complexity scale, with different and competing issues that confound simple diagnosis and treatment. It says a tremendous amount about her, and those around her, that, in spite of her profound despair, she was able to insist on the right help for herself eventually. It says even more about her that she consistently recognises her privilege in being in that position. Her empathy for fellow sufferers knows no bounds.
What saves this book from being just an unbearably sad tome on the state of our mental health system are the moments of light that Spargo-Ryan can see in her experience. There are straightforward funny moments, and horrifyingly funny moments in the way that you can't look away from a car crash. This isn't to say she makes a joke of mental illness, but rather she is able to skilfully convey the situations in which it can land you, and take a brutally but refreshingly honest view of them.
This memoir isn't for everyone, but it is worth pushing through, even if its subject matter makes you uncomfortable. The more people who don't have mental health issues can grasp the experiences of those who do, the more we can collectively advocate for a better system that doesn't misdiagnose, mistreat or flat-out ignore the Anna Spargo-Ryans of this world.


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[Brianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite being very excited for A Kind of Magic to come out, I somehow didn’t buy it until 2024, and then life intervened and I’ve only just now read (listened to) it. I’m so glad I did.

Anna writes beautifully, and she has crafted such a valuable and necessary piece in this memoir. I feel so lucky that I saw a tweet from her in April 2024 that prompted me to finally go buy it.

I particularly wanted to read it because Anna discusses her experience of mental illness symptoms that are rarely depicted (at least, not in media crafted by people living with them), so I was hoping to learn from her story and insights. I absolutely did, and I’m so excited to now go around recommending the book to people in my life as a result. I was also surprised by how close to home many of her comments hit to my own experience of chronic illness.

The memoir’s scope and tone go far beyond the quotes below, they are simply the ones that hit particularly close to home for me.

“For as long as I can remember, I have had a degree of understanding that this is ‘just the way I am’. I have been led to believe - first by my parents, later by doctors, and all combinations of these relationships - that I should just get on with things.”

“I felt so deeply burdensome that I wanted to avoid making it worse at any cost.”

“I only knew the language of ‘don’t make a scene’ and ‘don’t take up so much space’. I was taught to be contrite and grateful. I had learned, over years and decades, that feeling bad was never about trying to feel better again but about not getting in anyone else’s way while you did it.”

“I think I did wonder about it, to begin with - why isn’t anyone helping me? Eventually I came to the conclusion that they weren’t supposed to. I believed I wasn’t as sick as I imagined. That I was, once again, being overly dramatic. And then…each time I asked for help, someone told me to Calm Down.”

[Stacey Longo · Rating 5 out of 5]

BOK REVIEW:
A Kind of Magic by Anna Spargo-Ryan

I don’t usually review memoirs but I couldn’t resist giving this ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

This book was absolutely beautiful. I found myself having to stop often to marvel at the way words had been put together, unexpected; yet, perfect.

It is a story of mental ill health and what it is like to experience it from the beginning to how it can develop. Specifically; anxiety, dissociation, ocd, psychosis, postpartum psychosis, borderline personality disorder and depression. If you’ve never experienced being mentally ill, or if you have experienced it; then you will gain something by reading this book. I related to it on a deep level. Though our struggles are not identical, I can see parts of her experience that resonate with.

Anna traces back her journey from when she was very small to the experience of her elders, right up until the present day. It is eye-opening, validating and moving. Yet, there is also hope. She lives her life in spite of her struggles and always tries to find ways to fight them.

[Alice Jones1234567]

Anna Spargo-Ryan’s book is a memoir about mental illness. A brutally honest, raw, unflinching memoir. As the reader you travel with her through a difficult childhood, characterised by emerging, untreated mental illness, and watch as she and her parents make mistakes that lead to more difficulties down the line. Her young adulthood is also characterised by attempts to cope, and it can be hard to realise just how much she suffered before things got better.

If you are a compassionate person, or you’ve experienced mental illness, this book may be incredibly difficult to read at times, because Anna Spargo-Ryan does such a good job of bringing home to the reader what it’s like for her to experience these mental illnesses, that you feel like you are right there, mentally ill alongside her.

I decided not to rate this book, as it’s very personal and can be a hard read at times, but I think it is an important book. It is one that makes you realise how lucky you are, or perhaps makes you feel less alone in your experiences of mental illness, if you’ve had them.

[Jess Kitching · Rating 5 out of 5]

'A Kind of Magic' is the most recent memoir I've read, and one I'd recommend to anyone wanting to understand more about mental health, particularly anxiety, and how the world and our experiences shape us⁠
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At times, reading this book was tough - you wanted to reach into the page and give Anna a hug - but this book was such a rewarding read. It detailed the courage it takes to admit you're not okay and seek help. It talked about highs and lows in searing honesty and was unflinching with the truth⁠
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It was also full of hope. Such beautiful, life-affirming hope ⁠
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Personally, I think good memoirs leave you feeling like you know the author. Well, that was definitely the case with 'A Kind of Magic'! Not only did I close this book feeling connected to Anna, but also like I'd learned a lot about mental health⁠
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A huge thank you to Ultimo Press for this pre-release copy. Another great read 👏

[Giovanna Walker]

Like another reviewer, I don't want to rate this, as it is such a personal story.

The style of the writing was easy to read, however at times I did get a little frustrated with the 'amusing asides'.

I did really appreciate her insight into not having the words to describe how she felt and be an advocate for herself. By just hearing and repeating words we've been shown and heard of from advertising, or doctors. To be able to have the other words would be great asset for everyone - patient and doctor. Also the reflection that you have to be your own advocate - it's exhausting!!! That's what a lot of people don't realise and others just don't care (including some doctors).

Her writing has given an insight into one persons struggle. I admire her courage for sharing her story.