by NRB | 3 Sep 2024 | Fiction |
Stephen Downes’ debut The Hands of Pianists was shortlisted for the PM’s Literary Awards. His second ranges across art, violence, folklore and mental illness. This is a strange book. Not just because the narrator is a violent criminal writing his thoughts for his...
by NRB | 20 Aug 2024 | Non-fiction |
Maggie Walters’ memoir goes beyond the clichés of Hollywood to describe what it’s like living with mental illness. Maggie Walters was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder (now known as dissociative identity disorder) 30 years ago. On the outside, she is like...
by NRB | 18 Oct 2022 | Non-fiction |
Anna Spargo-Ryan’s memoir melds a vivid account of lifelong mental illness with thorough research. Early on in A Kind of Magic, Anna Spargo-Ryan tries to establish where her mental illness story begins, looking – not surprisingly – to her family. Did she inherit...
by NRB | 2 Nov 2021 | Non-fiction |
Michelle Tom’s memoir weaves together the experience of being in an earthquake and the reverberations of family trauma. In 2011, Michelle Tom’s house was damaged by the deadly magnitude 6.3 earthquake in Christchurch that killed 185 people. In her debut memoir...
by NRB | 31 Jul 2020 | Extracts, Fiction |
This week we have an extract from Mia Walsch’s memoir Money for Something: Sex work. Drugs. Life. Need. It’s a lively, insightful, frank and at times harrowing account of a young woman’s experiences as a sex worker. Her mental illness makes it difficult for her to...
JUNE WRIGHT Mother Paul series. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm6 December 2024June Wright has faded from view, but in 1948 her novel Murder in the Telephone [ … ]
ANDREW O’HAGAN Caledonian Road. Reviewed by Catherine Pardey5 December 2024This new novel from the author of Mayflies is set in London, but Glasgow is [ … ]
IAIN RYAN The Dream. Reviewed by Ben Ford Smith3 December 2024Iain Ryan’s latest novel continues his fascination with 1980s Queensland and [ … ]
MARINA YUSZCZUK Thirst. Reviewed by Ann Skea28 November 2024Argentinian writer Marina Yuszczuk puts her twist on the vampire novel in [ … ]