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This is a truthful account of a terrible experience. The author underwent heart surgery for aortic stenosis, a condition of a heart valve which leads to increasing breathlessness and water-logging of the whole body. He describes his feelings and physical state before and after the operation. He is now well, and suffers from very little physical disability, and is able to continue his work as a lay psycho-analyst. To someone who has suffered from a heart affection this book makes difficult reading. Constantly one finds oneself saying 'Did I really behave as badly as that?' which I feel is testimony to the honesty of the writer, his efforts to remember and put everything down, and the vividness of his writing. His description of the recovery period and its confusional state is exceptionally good. Here we have all the self-deceits, ruthless egotism, paranoid fears, sentimentality, and in particular sense of unreality which are characteristic of the heart patient. Here too we have the longing to know the truth which suddenly gives way to the refusal of truth when the truth gets too close. It seems hard to tax the author with failing to rise to the height of his subject, but it is unfortunately true that he quite honestly shows that he never consciously faced death. It would have been a finer and better book if he had been able to do so. The supplement by his wife gives her account of the trouble they went through together and shows what a tower of strength she must have been to him.