Published: Oct. 18, 2011
Words: 94,502 (approximate)
Language: English
ISBN: 9780986901317

Short description

Dermot Fallon has a disease. Currently hospitalized in Vancouver, he recreates with lunatic clarity the circumstances surrounding his recent trip to Ireland to bury his father, and his own schizophrenic breakdown. *Scar contains strong language and is not suitable for young children. Discretion is advised.*

Extended description

Dermot Fallon has a disease. Currently hospitalized in Vancouver, he recreates with lunatic clarity the circumstances surrounding his recent trip to Ireland to bury his father, and his own schizophrenic breakdown. Pursued by the past – that of his family and a nation, as well as his own – he in turn pursues Fiona, his cousin’s fiancée, even as reality fragments into nightmare in the tangled tripwires of his brain. Told from Dermot’s own perspective with extensive notes by his psychiatrist, Scar is a powerful meditation on death, love, loss, identity, family and the terrifying ecstasy of madness.

"...A literary-minded schizophrenic with a story to tell dominates Frawley’s complex, multilayered debut novel...Less a novel than a steady stream of hallucinatory imageries, this tale within a tale incorporates aspects from memoir, fiction and speculative fiction genres....Creatively inspired." - Kirkus Reviews

"Ryan Frawley's first novel, Scar, ambitiously sets out to tell not .. (Read more) Dermot Fallon has a disease. Currently hospitalized in Vancouver, he recreates with lunatic clarity the circumstances surrounding his recent trip to Ireland to bury his father, and his own schizophrenic breakdown. Pursued by the past – that of his family and a nation, as well as his own – he in turn pursues Fiona, his cousin’s fiancée, even as reality fragments into nightmare in the tangled tripwires of his brain. Told from Dermot’s own perspective with extensive notes by his psychiatrist, Scar is a powerful meditation on death, love, loss, identity, family and the terrifying ecstasy of madness.

"...A literary-minded schizophrenic with a story to tell dominates Frawley’s complex, multilayered debut novel...Less a novel than a steady stream of hallucinatory imageries, this tale within a tale incorporates aspects from memoir, fiction and speculative fiction genres....Creatively inspired." - Kirkus Reviews

"Ryan Frawley's first novel, Scar, ambitiously sets out to tell not one story, but three or four..a lyric, delicate story written with soulful attention to the lore of the land...... beautifully written, with an obvious knowledge of subject matter and a sensitivity to place, tone and pacing..." - Conium Review

"...destabilising, vibrant, and many-layered. Strains of Irish mythology, psychoanalysis and a sympathetic and immensely close portrait of schizophrenia all somehow gel together with very little friction, to create a compelling and complex puzzle of a book." - Neon Magazine
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Tags

mental illness, ireland, mythology, schizophrenia, experimental, vancouver

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Reviews

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Review by: Bryn Hammond on April 03, 2012 :
Too wonderful, I don't know how to talk about it. The spiritual insights of schizophrenia; Irish legends earthily told; artistry, of the sort that only needs a sentence or two, to make you look twice. I have to read this again. I feel inadequate to comment. - Not that you can't gain much, much, on a single and even fast read; the story hastens you along.
(reviewed long after purchase)

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