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Welcome

I started this blog in 2013 to share my reflections on reading, writing and psychology, along with my journey to become a published novelist.​  I soon graduated to about twenty book reviews a month and a weekly 99-word story. Ten years later, I've transferred my writing / publication updates to my new website but will continue here with occasional reviews and flash fiction pieces, and maybe the odd personal post.

ANNE GOODWIN'S WRITING NEWS

Taking refuge in madness? The Offering by Grace McCleen

14/11/2015

10 Comments

 
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Two and half months short of her thirteenth birthday, Madeline sets off with her parents for a new life on an unnamed island. With no job organised, and no real plan other than to spread the word of God amongst the neighbours, it seems that their faith has been rewarded when they discover a dilapidated farmhouse, with a garden somewhat reminiscent of the picture of Eden in the family Bible. Over the course of that first summer, life is idyllic, as the father finds short-term work and Madeline is home-schooled by her mother, leaving lots of time to roam the countryside with her dog. But, as the chill winds of autumn approach, it seems that their luck – or God’s protection – is running out. Madeline watches with anxiety as her father is refused work, her mother sinks into depression, their stores run low and the house falls into disrepair. Yet, as she records in her diary, she isn’t completely helpless; perhaps, as in the Old Testament, a sacrifice will make God look upon them favourably once more.
Grace McLean paints a poignant portrait of the vulnerability of adolescence for an isolated and idealistic child (p113):

This is the journal of my fourteenth year. It hasn’t really begun but I already know it will be the best year of my life. My task this year is to find You. The blazing arc of the sky tells me it is possible, the hills say it too, the fields swallowed up in the afternoon sun nod their heads … We have come to this place that it seems to me You have made for us. We were obedient so You remembered us. You remembered Your covenant.

I particularly admired the way in which the girl’s incipient sexuality is transformed into something quite different by her religious belief. The proselytising and tightness of the mother-daughter bond was reminiscent of Jess in Motherland, and the religious self-assurance of Zippy in A Song for Issy Bradley. But the framing of Madeline’s teenage crisis within the dangerous relationship between a psychiatrist and his patient worked less well for me, despite the parallels between the godlike status of both her father and Dr Lucas.

The reader is first introduced to Madeline as a woman in her mid-30s, confined to a psychiatric hospital for the past twenty-one years. She suffers from some form of chronic fatigue syndrome, which she interprets as “an expression of disgust” (p81), with occasional brief “psychotic breaks” characterised by acts of violence of which she has no memory. I found it hard to believe that a fourteen-year-old girl would be admitted and detained there “in an asylum for the mentally insane in the heart of the English countryside” (p172) at a time when there was an active policy to reduce the long-stay hospital population. (With the electric fence, straitjacket and outmoded language – it’s possible that Madeline was being ironic in referring to herself as “an inmate” (p80) but I could envisage the kindly nurses being upset at her use of the term – I imagined some kind of Soviet re-education camp.) Still, some of the interactions between the patients were engaging, with more staff involvement than in Jamie Mollart’s imagined psychiatric ward.

The intractability of her problems serves as a challenge to the new psychiatrist. Dr Lucas imposes his treatment programme upon her (and the surprisingly passive nursing team): regular sessions of hypnosis, graded exercise and a thought diary – which he seems to think is all there is to CBT – which, despite her reluctance, Madeline is unusually capable of completing without much instruction or support (p82). Dr Lucas believes that recovering her memory of what happened on the island will be the key to her recovery, as well as sealing his own reputation; I would have found it more satisfying when he’s proved wrong if the setup were more credible.

Since Madeline refers to this intervention as therapy (p67), I pondered including this review in my series on fictional psychotherapists, but decided against on the basis that the author herself probably wouldn’t see Dr Lucas that way. But it’s possible I’m being extra hard on this character because of my fondness for a real-life (though now deceased) Dr Lucas, psychiatrist and psychotherapist, whose paper on the psychotic wavelength was genuinely ground-breaking in its time.

The Offering is Grace McLean’s third novel. Thanks to Sceptre books for my review copy.

While I might not appreciate his methods, I agree with Dr Lucas that madness can be a refuge from a reality that can’t be borne. Of course, it’s a refuge that generates other problems, which might not be what Charli had in mind when she set her latest flash fiction challenge. Mindful that I’ve not only neglected to exercise my flash muscles lately, I’m way behind Charli in revising last year’s non-Nano project (in the sense that she’s got research coming out of her ears, while I haven’t even looked at my fast first draft,
I thought I’d resurrect Matty, a long-stay psychiatric hospital patient who believes she lives in a stately home. I did bring her out to play several months ago when, in another 99-word story, in which community care seems to promise renewal and refuge. But here she is being quizzed by some visitors. I’m not sure how easy it will be to see what’s going on, but here’s a clue: her interlocutors aren’t journalists.
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How tiresome they are with their questions, but I owe it to their readers to comply. Starved of glamour, they are curious about life here: the rolling parkland; ornate reception rooms; staff on twenty-four-hour alert. But I am always left with a headache when the journalists depart.

What year is it? Who is the Prime Minister? Where did I live before I came here? I merely smile as they scribble in their files.

The Butler brings tea. I offer them a jelly baby. If they choose a yellow one, I will let them see a picture of the boy.

Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
10 Comments
g link
15/11/2015 12:43:36 am

I haven't really thought much about it but in the few book I've read recently that have fictionalised law firms I generally find them a. implausible and b. fine as fiction goes because I doubt readers who aren't familiar don't mind if the internal logic works, and don't really care if it's wrong. Do I get the sense here that with this author you are prepared to forgive what appear like errors? And if so why this time when in others you are quite unforgiving! Or have I misread you?!
The flash has real depth. And the explanation up front adds intrigue.

Reply
Annecdotist
15/11/2015 02:03:53 pm

An interesting query, Mysterious Mr G. I’m not sure about “forgiveness”, but the setting of a novel seems important to me, and in this one the hospital setting didn’t work. However, when I put those criticisms to the side, I was able to enjoy the depiction of Madeline’s distorted adolescence.
It was a bit like Herring Girl for me, in which an extremely interesting historical story was framed within a contemporary setup featuring past-life regression via hypnosis (and while I try to respect others’ unusual beliefs, this to me is mumbo-jumbo and not the province of a therapist).
http://annegoodwin.weebly.com/annecdotal/-fictional-psychologists-and-psychological-therapists-16-herring-girl-by-debbie-taylor
So I suppose when a novel is layered, I can enjoy one layer while rejecting another if it misrepresents a field I know a bit about.
But should I be more tolerant of these misrepresentations of therapy in mental health services in the same way that you seem to be about misrepresentations of law firms? I don’t know. What concerns me is unnecessarily feeding into the fear and prejudice around mental health issues (which I don’t think is there to the same degree with law). There’s an awful lot wrong with inpatient psychiatric care, but it really isn’t like what you see in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which might be where some writers turn for their research. This isn’t the only novel I’ve read this year that features a straitjacket in a contemporary hospital – and it’s not used as an integral part of the plot, but seemingly a bit of detail mistakenly meant to render the setting more authentic – and it’s pandering to outmoded stereotypes.
Am I becoming more tolerant? I don’t know either, but I do realise that readers don’t want to be presented with a great list of nit-picky mistakes. Especially since I’ve been doing some talks to general readers on my fictional psychotherapist series, I appreciate the necessity of highlighting positive examples (although therapist readers are also interested in the deviations from established practice) of which fortunately I’ve discovered more of late. And, of course, I want people to be tolerant of any bending of the truth in my own novel.
Interesting to reflect on what is and isn’t permissible to me as a reader, and whether or not the same standards apply in my writing. Thanks for getting me thinking. Your comment also relates to what Charli said in relation to my previous post on fictional accuracy. This might have to become a blog post!

Reply
Mr G! link
15/11/2015 06:27:49 pm

Thanks Anne. Thoughtful as I'd expect and I can see the distortion you make with law and psychiatric care. I do laugh at some where the lawyers are either good or bad, not human. And they make out law firms to be seething masses of ego and ambition whereas mostly people just want to do a good job as ethically as possible and go home. And yes do that post!

Annecdotist
17/11/2015 05:50:36 pm

Ha, "I can see the distortion you make" – a Freudian slip? But if the lawyers are presented as either good or evil then that's just crap writing – even for villains there needs to be a mixture of both.

Charli Mills
15/11/2015 07:26:52 pm

Fascinating as always to read your reviews. This makes me pause and seems to be at the heart of this discussion here: "I found it hard to believe that a fourteen-year-old girl would be admitted and detained there 'in an asylum for the mentally insane in the heart of the English countryside' (p172) at a time when there was an active policy to reduce the long-stay hospital population."

How much of historical accuracy matters? Perhaps two things -- credibility of the story (does it disrupt the reader's suspension of belief?), and misinformation (does it perpetuate stereotypes or myths?). The incident at Rock Creek in 1861 is considered the second most controversial gunfight in the US frontier. In some ways, I always believed too much has been written. How could I find something new to say, something meaningful to add to the body of Hickok mythology? The women's perspective gave me something new because historians glossed over the women involved as typical good-wife/bad-mistress types. And through that perspective, I have found new evidence that will be meaningful. So does it matter if I have a road ranch organized differently than they were in 1850s? I think so, because if I want the big points to be taken with credibility, and I want readers of historical fiction who most likely are history buffs or historians, a mistake like that could be critical. If less was at stake, if I was writing a fun western romp, then I could take more liberties with history perhaps.

I'm really liking your Matty character! Glad to see a return. If I ever go mad, I want to be like Matty, locked away in a palace with servants and plied with questions from journalists. :-) The last line though, so interesting that she is actually looking for clues herself, even if it is the sort of tea-leaf reading kind of clues.

Reply
Annecdotist
17/11/2015 05:48:18 pm

Interesting, Charli. I think I'm more concerned with the perpetuating stereotypes than accuracy, although they do overlap. I don't think I'd mind too much if I saw a patient being offered a branded therapy that hadn't yet been invented if they'd got the big issues, and particularly the atmosphere, right.
You're being very conscientious with your WIP – and as an outsider, the issues wouldn't matter to me in your work, but I imagine Hickok buffs would be alert to the discrepancies. However I do wonder if you're telling a story from a totally new perspective of the women that that might outweigh any small inaccuracies? But I know you're enjoying your research so much!
Yes, Matty is fab, and such fun to write, but one of my dilemmas with this novel – when I finally get back to it – is ensuring there is respect within the humour. Of course, there's something pretty dreadful at the root of her madness!

Reply
sarah link
18/11/2015 03:26:57 am

This is brilliant flash. I absolutely love this. (I think you know I love this type of flash.) I was this close to writing about taking refuge in madness but it sort of morphed as I wrote it. Ah, the life of a pantser. But I'm glad I didn't because you captured it so beautifully here.

So the review... I don't know. The story line seems intriguing with the breakdown of the entire family but what I really like is the journal. The entire story is presented through her journal or just parts of it? Either way, looks like a great read even though it didn't seem like your favorite read of all time. ;-)

Reply
Annecdotist
18/11/2015 08:36:15 am

Thanks, Sarah, but don't you think it's great that even in 99-word microfiction a story can develop into something we didn't expect?
No, we given only extracts of the journal, but you've reminded me of another thing that annoyed me about Dr Lucas: he's taken her journal without permission and photocopied pages from it to discuss that in their sessions – there are lots of privacy violations in psychiatric hospitals but I don't think even the most arrogant psychiatrist would go that far these days (although they might cudgel the patient into giving the impression that they have volunteered it)

Reply
Norah Colvin link
17/3/2016 01:01:31 am

Hi Anne,I obviously missed this one at the time. Came here via a link from another of your posts looking for information about "Closure" but couldn't see it. Enjoyed reading your flash though. What a sad tale. The questions asked and unanswered (or not correctly) are not unlike those asked of dementia patients.

Reply
Annecdotist
18/3/2016 09:48:25 am

Thanks for following my links to unexpected places, Norah, but sorry this one confused you. The flash is very closely based on my novel-in-slow-process Closure, so I'm glad it appealed. I'm having great fun writing Matty but I need to bring the other point of view characters to life in the same way.

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