Submitted Literature
Beloved Stranger
Review
Late-onset mood disorder is examined in this novel, as a long-married couple are rocked by the husband’s descent into mania, his hospitalisation and his wife’s struggle to cope, manifested through drinking heavily and stopping eating, with the sudden loss of the husband she has known. The novel serves as a stark reminder of the need to acknowledge and involve life partners in decision making regarding long and short term care, a fact emphasised through the disempowering experiences of all involved.
Key Themes:
- Bipolar Affective Disorder
- Carer Issues
- Revealing Reads
- Violence
Significant Quotes / Pages
57 - “ ‘Mad, senseless, deranged, mental, insane, confused, demented, crazy.’ Crumbs spluttered as he expounded. ‘Deranged might do. Have you a dictionary?’ […] ‘Deranged…here we are!’ […] ‘Thrown into disorder. That's about right. We won't say he's mad any more. […] We’ll say deranged”
Reference: Clare, Boylan. 2000. Beloved Stranger. London: Abacus, 2000
Reviewer
- Charley Baker
Date Review Submitted: Friday 20th March 2009
View By Theme
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- Addiction
- Addiction
- Alcoholism
- Animals
- Antisocial Personality Disorder
- Anxiety
- Asylums
- auditory hallucinations
- Autobiography
- Bereavement
- Biography
- Bipolar Affective Disorder
- Cannabis
- Carer Issues
- Child Abuse
- Child and Adolescent Carers
- Childhood / Adolescence
- Cocaine
- Creativity and Madness
- Criminally induced insanity
- Cultural Psychiatry
- Cure
- De Clérambaults Syndrome
- Dementia / Alzheimer's
- Depression
- Developmental / Learning Disorders
- Diversity and Ethnicity
- Domestic Violence
- Eating Disorders
- ECT
- Education
- Female Genital Mutilation
- Fiction
- Head Injury
- Heroin
- History of Psychiatry
- Home
- Hysteria
- Institutional Abuses
- Isolation
- Medical Training
- Meditation and Mindfulness
- Mental Illness and The Psychiatric Institution
- Morbid Jealousy
- Multiple Personality Disorder / Dissociative Identity Disorder
- Munchausen by Proxy
- Mutism
- Neurological Disorders
- Novel
- Obsessions
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
- Personal / Professional
- Personality
- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Post-natal Depression
- Postmodern Madness
- Professional / Occupational Stress
- Psychoanalysis
- Psychosexual Disorders
- Psychosis
- Psychosynthesis
- Psychotherapy
- Rape
- Religion
- Revealing Reads
- Schizoaffective Disorder
- Schizophrenia
- Self-destructive behaviour
- Self-Injury
- Societal Pressure
- Stress
- Suicidality
- Test
- Tourettes Syndrome
- Violence
- Vulnerability