With the opening sentence in his book, Bleed, Bill Williams sets the scene for an idyllic moment in his life.
"Dingoes howled in the shadows as we lay stretched out by the fire on a moonless autumn night."
That couldn't be further from the truth.
Piercing the darkness was an unearthly groan - it was coming from his wife, Gisela.
It's not long before Bill, a doctor, realised Gisela needed a brain scan - now!
But they are in the desert, on a trip to visit Pintubi friends in the remote western desert of central Australia.
From here the reader is taken on a harrowing ride with the couple as they make a desperate dash to the nearest hospital and it is confirmed Gisela has had a brain aneurysm.
Williams' easy, conversational style of writing draws the reader in, keeping us engaged as we will Gisela to get better.
It's a personal story of Gisela's surgery and recovery, interwoven with the history of how medicine has evolved and the understanding of the human brain.
- Bleed, $29.95, Wild Man Press, distributed by Dennis Jones and Associates, email theoffice@dennisjones.com.au
