Mystery Book by Unnamed Author

DISCLOSURE: This book was a 'gift' from the boss of the company that owns the company that I work for. It came with a syrupy letter saying something about how amazing it is that after working in publishing for so long a book can still move you and aren't words great and aren't we all really priviledged to work here and make books like this bullshit bullshit etc.

I read the book - it was free, afterall - and I know the adage about peering into the gobs of gift horses, but this one, it must be said, came at me with it's mouth wide open and it's rotten teeth and halitosis plain for all to witness. It doesn't take a veterinary denitst to tell you that this 'gift' was as a completely transparent attempt to save money on marketing by having me do it for them for free.

'Fraid not, Mr. Hyphenated-Surname, not this little reader, no Sir. I mean, perhaps if there were a more direct link between sales of this book and my salary, I'd be reading it on the train, offering to loan it to my mum, dropping its name into random conversations with friends etc, but there ain't. So I'm not. There was no offer of commission in the letter you sent accompanying the book so I can only infer that it really makes diddly-squat difference to me what happens to it. Bury it under a pile of compost for all I care.

Also, it was crap. The cover is pretty and very eye-catching, and characters were kind of engaging, but the narrative was, oh, how shall I put this? Shit. Maybe if you hadn't spent so much on the foil on the cover, or let the extent get so out of hand that by half way though I was wishing someone would tear out some of the pages, or if you'd maybe considered being slightly more economical with the chapter heads, you wouldn't need to sell so many copies of it that you'd blatantly attempt to use your workforce, gratis, to start some kind of whisper campaign about it like we're a bunch of teenage girls and this is Twilight. Just a thought.

So, you know, thanks for the book and all that, but far from telling anyone to read it, I'm not even going to tell anyone what it is. I'm shoving it under my compost heap and hoping that, like shit in a garden bed, something useful actually comes out of it. Unless, of course, you'd like to reflect this in my salary somehow? No, didn't think so.

Maybe I'm wrong, and you just really value your workers and really thought this was brilliant and wanted to share it with us? Well then I have another suggestion: next time you want to enourage my love of reading and remind me why I work in this slavishly underpaid industry you could just add the wholesale value of a book (reflective of the staff discount, if you like) to my bank account (you've got the details) and I'll read whatever I like. Thanks.

Girl Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

“A successful suicide demands good organisation and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind.”

HA! I loved Kaysen’s dry and detached observations about being viewed as crazy, even more commendable since this is her story about being locked up in a mental institution for 2 years in the 60’s. She was in the rock-star McLean Hospital, home to fellow nutty alumni such as Sylvia Plath, Ray Charles and James Taylor, and was admitted after a 20 minute consultation with her doctor. Having been diagnosed with ‘Borderline Personality Disorder’, Kaysen seemed to me like a slightly moody, anxious teenager, barely grown and displaying some vaguely subversive tendencies that wouldn’t get a second look at now – she was vegetarian, slept with her English teacher and didn’t want to go to college. She must be nuts, let’s throw her in with society’s rejects.

Becoming a writer, Kaysen tracked down her medical records, which must have been strangely illuminating, since it never really was made clear to her why she was there. She obviously needed some time chilling away from the world, as she didn’t really protest or try to bust her way out, but her story does beg the question – what were her family doing? Why was she there for two years? Answers aren’t all that forthcoming, and Kaysen focuses more on the day to day of being in a loony bin, which she does in an engaging and direct style. There’s an awesome chapter called ‘Velocity vs. Viscosity’ which describes the fastness and thickness of insanity in a way that gave me great insight into mental illness, and the fragility of the mind.