'In public or on stage, it's different. I'm fine. I have no bother talking to three hundred people, and sharing my feelings. But when I'm in a room on a one-to-one basis, I get lost. I can never find the right word. Except for that phrase - hold me.' Michael Harding's wife has departed for a six-week trip, and he has been left alone in their home in Leitrim. Faced with the realities of caring for himself for the first time since his illness two years before, Harding endeavours to tame the 'elephant' - an Asian metaphor for the unruly mind. As he does, he finds himself finally coming to terms with the death of his mother - a loss that has changed him more than he knows. Funny, searingly honest and profound, Hanging with the Elephant pulls back the curtain and reveals what it is really like to be alive.
![Michael Harding: Hanging with the Elephant [2015] paperback](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0616/4001/6057/files/harding-michael-michael-harding-hanging-with-the-elephant-2015-paperback-52984127455571.jpg?v=1700319021&width=480)