Tony Blair’s former spin doctor Alastair Campbell is to publish his first novel later this year. All in the Mind is described by Campbell’s publisher, Random House, as “the compelling story of a psychiatrist, his patients and family, and the pressures they bring to bear upon each other”.
Campbell, who has previously spoken about his struggles with depression, said that although he has himself required psychiatric treatment “this is a book by me, not about me”. He first started to write a novel in 1986 but his partner Fiona accidentally deleted it from their computer, which Campbell reflected “in hindsight is perhaps for the best”.
He said that writing a novel was “something I have always wanted to do”. Caroline Gascoigne, the director of Hutchinson Publishing (part of the Random House group), said that Campbell had not told anyone he was working on a novel until it was finished. She described it as a book that would “surprise, intrigue and fascinate everyone who reads it”.
