The Soul Asylums
A Memoir of Love, Hope and Recovery
Sheridan Hough
A mystery virus is spreading across the mainland…
On the run from his former life haunted since surviving the Institutions, a man searches for answers by the ocean shores…
Can he find redemption in love waiting beyond the shadows of the Soul Asylums?
As the virus and heatwaves sweep the Island, renewed by solitude and rehabilitated by the forces of nature, so he finds himself seeking his true calling in this raw memoir of one man’s journey from heartbreak to recovery.
The tragic story behind his dramatic vanishing from a city flat thirteen years before is revealed by flashback following the mysterious shattering of a wedding photo during a storm in the Lockdowns.
Triggering a relentless tide of memories of his fall into the shadows of the underworld, relayed over the seasons of social isolation, this powerful wash of revelations brings deeply transformative and inescapable truths, in a climb to rediscovering love, hope, and meaning in the darkest of places.
About the Author...
Sheridan Hough is a writer and mental health campaigner with a passion for storytelling and connection through the power of words. His debut publication, The Soul Asylums – A Memoir of Love, Hope and Recovery, is his personal recollection of a year of recovery during the Lockdowns of 2020, following his breakdown, arrest, and imprisonment thirteen years earlier.
Moving from his Midlands home in the 1990’s to study in Brighton, Sheridan immersed himself in the homegrown do-it-yourself media of the time, from freelance writing on everything from Big Brother surveillance to revolutionary tourism, before launching his own magazine with the young jobless and anti-socially marginalised of the city.
While youth working in the East End in the 2000’s, writing his debut novel Luther’s Dream, Sheridan found himself on the verge of a self-identity breakdown, which eventually became the subject matter for The Soul Asylums.
Relocating to the south-coast with his young family eventually led to a spell of convalesence, a rediscovery of a love of writing, followed by a calling to mental health campaigning through blogging and motivational coaching.
Today, Sheridan spends his free time with family, beachcombing by the ocean, and a simpler, low-key lifestyle, occasionally revisiting former halcyon days of chasing free party sound-systems and headline indie rock and roll stories round the country.
