Tags
Asylum, British, Death, Hallucinations, Mental illness, Recovery, revenge, Spider, violence, Writing
It has been one hell of a week. Mostly work and the fact that I owe a lot of money for this next year of college despite my financial aid package. It has been pretty stressful. But let’s get on with my book review of Spider by Patrick McGrath.
Spider AKA Dennis Cleg has returned to his home of London after being in Canada for twenty years. Throughout the novel he depicts his life and events leading up to how he came to live in Canada in the first place.
I wanted to read this book because the synopsis stated this it was going to take the audience inside the mind of a psychotic individual. It did not disappoint. Spider’s bouts of hallucinations weren’t as gory as I thought they were going to be. They were actually pretty tame considering. The synopsis critiqued the novel on being beautifully written and I have to agree. For being inside the mind of someone who has a mental illness his thoughts and explanations were pretty cohesive and sane really. I was a little confused because the whole story surrounds an incident with his mother and I wasn’t entirely sure if Spider was directly involved or not. In this book you have to read between the lines in order to interpret what exactly was unfolding. With the story taking place in London there was some terminology that threw me off but not much. This was a very captivating read honestly.
Overall, 5/5.
Until next time!