Another reason I took up creative writing was to improve my mental health. I find putting emotion on the page and not in me a cathartic and healing exercise, and I love reading stories that show authentic characterisation of people with, or recovering from, mental illness. This tale is told in the first-person narrative voice of Clare as she recounts events following her discharge from what readers intuit was a time when she was sectioned. It includes mental health struggles, neural a-typicality and everyday, casual antisemitism. Clare is a funny, clever, though not always knowing, narrative presence through which to experience the story, and readers often have more insight into her condition than she has herself. This dramatic irony is skilfully handled and when the reader ends the story not quite sure if the supernatural ally Clare meets inside the house she rents, was a real visitation or a delusion, the not knowing feels just right.
First published in The Book of Judith, Rampant Loon Press, 2014
A Personal Anthology 