A staggering 38 per cent of people in Europe are estimated to suffer some degree of mental illness or breakdown at some point in their lives. Adam Ant, Ruby Wax, Jim Carrey, Ellen Degeneres, Russell Brand, Alastair Campbell, Cara Delevingne, Ray Davies, Stephen Fry, Paul Gascoigne, Bill Oddie and Catherine Zeta-Jones are just a few of those who have ‘come out’ as sufferers of bipolar disorder and other mental health conditions.
It’s great that we are in a place where people can talk openly about the subject, that it’s usually not stigmatised or brushed under the carpet these days, as it was in times gone by.
Newcastle-born, Durham-based author Stan L. Abbott has written a novel about what it’s like to suffer one aspect of mental ill-health, the dramatic and alarming state of experiencing a manic episode. The book, The Episode, was triggered by an accident he had on his bike followed by a period in hospital. His physical injury caused a chemical imbalance in his brain, leading to him experiencing delusions.
“While in my delusional state I thought I was inspired to write a great work about life in a psychiatric unit, but the results were laughable and a version of what I created features in The Episode as another manifestation of my madness,” says Stan, an experienced trained journalist and publisher. “I think it was my talk therapist who gave me the confidence to write a ‘real account’ once I was well enough and, indeed, to interweave this fictionalised version of my episode with the even greater fiction of imagined events set in the delusional world that I created.”
The Episode explores the boundaries between the real and the imagined; between the known and the unknown; between the possible and the improbable. It gives a rare first person insight into how it feels when an individual finds the intellectual certainties that define our daily lives crumbling all around them.
The story starts when a naïve Felix Merryweather finds himself unexpectedly reunited with a woman from his past. He can’t imagine the bizarre chain of events that will follow, as he is drawn into the labyrinthine world of the reclusive entrepreneur, Lord Lindisfarne. It is a world born out Lindisfarne’s, then just plain Victor Turnbull’s, descent into mania following a freak accident.
“The Episode is about a serious subject but it is, I think, also a funny book – some of the things that happen during madness are intrinsically funny, even if they may also be sad. But I also hope that people will enjoy the humour in the fictional characters I have created.
“It was a pleasant surprise to realise that writing the book was actually a cathartic exercise,” he says. “I had never seen it as such until someone suggested the idea to me, but I do appreciate that it was very much part of my healing process.”
The Episode is a hefty tome, coming in at around 650 pages.
“I started the book in 2011 and didn’t finish it until early 2019, but that had more do with the pressures of needing to earn a living getting in the way than with any need for it to have taken so long,” says Stan. “I think I could have turned it round in a few months without other distractions.
“I don’t think mental illness is properly understood by most of the population – indeed I don’t think it was properly understood by me until it happened to me. On the other hand, most of us will know someone who has suffered mental illness at some point in their lives.”
What advice would he give to unpublished fiction writers?
“Firstly, never give up the day job! Secondly, have belief in what you are trying to do. Ultimately there are more words of fiction written than ever published and sold, so it can’t be easy, so I would suggest seeking honest and candid critical advice to confirm your belief in the value of your work or to suggest ways it might be improved. Above all, read well written stories and learn how they are told.”
Stan currently has a commission to write two narrative non-fiction works based around journeys, both in the North of England, and is also working on the start of a second novel.
“It’s set in a dystopian world in which the history the UK and Europe after the War has played out rather differently. What is left of England is little more than an American puppet state. I started work on the idea before the EU referendum but it does now feel like a bit of a metaphor.”
The Episode (£14.99 + P&P) is available at stanabbott.com, amazon.co.uk, waterstones.com and other outlets.