Poppy Shakespeare ::: Clare Allan ::: Bloomsbury

This novel, by a former patient at the now defunct Belle Ridley Day Hospital, (Islington) deploys an intense style of narration, kind of like ‘Trainspotting’ but more singular, and at more of a fixed focus. It is upon this foundation that the novel builds, incorporating several references to other documentary texts about unwell people, aka MAD money assessments (Disability Living Alowance) and,

“ ‘What’s that you’re reading?’ I ask again.
‘Same,’ she says and she holds it up. Assessment in Mental Health Nursing
it’s called. Got a crystal ball on the cover.”

as objects within the plot or frameworks for plot subtexts. The humour blossoms forth off the concrete backdrop of the foundation: the Mad money theme continues,

“ ‘It says BLOCK CAPITALS,’ she said.
‘Fuck what it says’, I said. ‘Just scrawl it. You’re s’posed to be mentally ill,’ I said.
‘Alright,’ said Poppy and she done it small.
‘Try with your other hand,’ I said.
‘They need to be able to read it,’ she said.
‘Trust me, Poppy, ‘ I said. ‘I know what I’m doing.’ “

There are further developments. Also what I quite like are the lucid asides of the main story, the many scenes that give substance and sustenance to the plot : a surreal plate throwing episode: the shock and awe of self harm: the surreality of her motion-capture of institutional routine.

The humour still further develops in some quite choice pieces, I am also minded of the ‘sets’ of the book – council flats, the common room at the (now decommissioned) Waterlow Unit on Highgate Hill, the offices and consulting rooms within it, and the corridors: claustrophobic spaces: the psychogeography and the surrealness of it all, reminding me of Will Self’s breaking work ‘The Quantity Theory of Insanity’, his first book in 1991.

july 2006