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Poppy Shakespeare
Shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Prize
Poppy Shakespeare is wholly unique — both an insider’s look at the madness of the mental health system and an outsider’s discovery of the power of an unlikely friendship, it signals the arrival of an extraordinary new voice on the international literary scene.
Who is mad? Who is sane? Who decides?
Welcome to the Dorothy Fish, a day hospital in North London. N has been a patient here for thirteen years. Day after day she sits smoking in the common room, swapping medication and comparing MAD money rates. Like all the patients at the Dorothy Fish, N’s chief ambition is never to get discharged. Each year, when her annual assessment comes round, she is relieved to learn that she hasn’t got any better.
Then in walks Poppy Shakespeare in her six-inch skirt and twelve-inch heels. She is certain she isn’t mentally ill and desperate to return to her life outside. Though baffled by Poppy’s attitude, N agrees to help. Together they plot to gain Poppy’s freedom. But in a world where everything’s upside-down, are they crazy enough to upset the system?
Funny, brilliant, and moving, Poppy Shakespeare looks at madness from the inside, questioning our mental health system and the borders we place between sanity and insanity. Written in high-voltage prose, original and troubling, it is a stunning debut.
Excerpt from Poppy Shakespeare :
‘It’s not that I’ve got a problem with mental illness,’ Poppy said. ‘It’s just there’s nothing the matter with me. Do you know what I’m saying?’
‘I wouldn’t worry bout that,’ I said. ‘They must think you’s mad or you wouldn’t be here. Candid Headphones don’t reckon she’s mad. Never stopped her,’ I said. . . .
‘Poppy?’ I said, cause I got to say it. Be like watching a blind man walk under a bus. ‘You know what you said bout not thinking you’s mad?’
‘Yes,’ she said, like what of it?
‘Well I wouldn’t say nothing to them about that,’ I told her. ‘Not at the moment. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I ain’t saying nothing. It’s just the doctors, you never know. They might decide to pick up on it. I mean, it’s up to you, do you know what I’m saying, but maybe if you stick to your other symptoms.’
Poppy Shakespeare is wholly unique — both an insider’s look at the madness of the mental health system and an outsider’s discovery of the power of an unlikely friendship, it signals the arrival of an extraordinary new voice on the international literary scene.
Who is mad? Who is sane? Who decides?
Welcome to the Dorothy Fish, a day hospital in North London. N has been a patient here for thirteen years. Day after day she sits smoking in the common room, swapping medication and comparing MAD money rates. Like all the patients at the Dorothy Fish, N’s chief ambition is never to get discharged. Each year, when her annual assessment comes round, she is relieved to learn that she hasn’t got any better.
Then in walks Poppy Shakespeare in her six-inch skirt and twelve-inch heels. She is certain she isn’t mentally ill and desperate to return to her life outside. Though baffled by Poppy’s attitude, N agrees to help. Together they plot to gain Poppy’s freedom. But in a world where everything’s upside-down, are they crazy enough to upset the system?
Funny, brilliant, and moving, Poppy Shakespeare looks at madness from the inside, questioning our mental health system and the borders we place between sanity and insanity. Written in high-voltage prose, original and troubling, it is a stunning debut.
Excerpt from Poppy Shakespeare :
‘It’s not that I’ve got a problem with mental illness,’ Poppy said. ‘It’s just there’s nothing the matter with me. Do you know what I’m saying?’
‘I wouldn’t worry bout that,’ I said. ‘They must think you’s mad or you wouldn’t be here. Candid Headphones don’t reckon she’s mad. Never stopped her,’ I said. . . .
‘Poppy?’ I said, cause I got to say it. Be like watching a blind man walk under a bus. ‘You know what you said bout not thinking you’s mad?’
‘Yes,’ she said, like what of it?
‘Well I wouldn’t say nothing to them about that,’ I told her. ‘Not at the moment. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I ain’t saying nothing. It’s just the doctors, you never know. They might decide to pick up on it. I mean, it’s up to you, do you know what I’m saying, but maybe if you stick to your other symptoms.’
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 127 reviews
April 13, 2018
Lifelong "dribbler" "N." is asked to show new arrival Poppy Shakespeare around the Dorothy Fish, the North London day hospital where she has spent her adult life after an unenviable childhood of getting "moved around more than a pass-the-****ing-parcel" (p. 104). Poppy is a definite shout of stylishness as she asserts that she doesn't really belong there. And other residents aren't so glad to see her, feeling that she's meant to replace a much-loved former resident. As N. introduces her to the farty couch, MAD Money, Banker Bill, Brian the Butcher, Canteen Coral, "Astrid A***wipe", and "Sue the Sticks, formerly known as Slasher Sue before she give up self-harming", Poppy offers N. a view of life outside the Dorothy Fish and Abaddon Hill (looks/sounds too much like "abandon," doesn't it?).
"If you gone up the eighth floor you never come back, just disappeared like crap up the hose of a hoover." (p. 6)
"Unbe****inglievable! I finally get there and look where I am with my chapters!" (how she begins "Chapter 14" on page 47)
"And I told her about the waiting list, how long it was, and all the people on it. 'There's people...go on when they're born and they's drawing their pensions before they've moved up three places. There's people whose GRANDPARENTS was on, and THEIR grandparents too, and they taken their places when they passed and they still ain't here yet. ....I heard if Jesus been put on the list like when he was born--or even before, when Gabriel told Mary he was coming--...if they'd put his name down then, he's still only be at three hundred and fifty-seven.'" (p. 100)
"'...it was like a proper postcard--and on the back I seen it said THE PALACE OF VERSIZE, and I've heard of that, do you know what I'm saying. It's France or something innit?' 'Dunno,' said Poppy. 'It is,' I said, 'Or Spain, maybe. Somewhere foreign. I know it ain't in London.'" (p.117)
"Carmel's complaint been building for fifteen years. No one knew what it was sparked it off, not even Carmel no more. Carmel's comment was a great-grandma at least. It been married, had kids and the kids had had kids and half of them was divorced and remarried or living together or living alone and all the stepchildren, half-brothers and sisters, and foster kids too; her complaint had great nieces and their nephews had cousins and their cousins had more cousins four-times-removed, and to find the complaint what started it all, do you know what I'm saying, was trying to find Eve at the top of a family tree. Dr. Azazel weren't nothing to the main complaint. He was something like a stepson of the step-step-step-half-brother. But one step at a time, said Carmel, and he was her job for today." (my favorite passage, at p. 129)
POPPY SHAKESPEARE was made into a (British)-TV-movie in 2008, starring Anna Maxwell Martin as N. and Naomie Harris as Poppy; you should be able to find it at YouTube. But I hope you'll enjoy reading the book!
Thanks for reading.
"If you gone up the eighth floor you never come back, just disappeared like crap up the hose of a hoover." (p. 6)
"Unbe****inglievable! I finally get there and look where I am with my chapters!" (how she begins "Chapter 14" on page 47)
"And I told her about the waiting list, how long it was, and all the people on it. 'There's people...go on when they're born and they's drawing their pensions before they've moved up three places. There's people whose GRANDPARENTS was on, and THEIR grandparents too, and they taken their places when they passed and they still ain't here yet. ....I heard if Jesus been put on the list like when he was born--or even before, when Gabriel told Mary he was coming--...if they'd put his name down then, he's still only be at three hundred and fifty-seven.'" (p. 100)
"'...it was like a proper postcard--and on the back I seen it said THE PALACE OF VERSIZE, and I've heard of that, do you know what I'm saying. It's France or something innit?' 'Dunno,' said Poppy. 'It is,' I said, 'Or Spain, maybe. Somewhere foreign. I know it ain't in London.'" (p.117)
"Carmel's complaint been building for fifteen years. No one knew what it was sparked it off, not even Carmel no more. Carmel's comment was a great-grandma at least. It been married, had kids and the kids had had kids and half of them was divorced and remarried or living together or living alone and all the stepchildren, half-brothers and sisters, and foster kids too; her complaint had great nieces and their nephews had cousins and their cousins had more cousins four-times-removed, and to find the complaint what started it all, do you know what I'm saying, was trying to find Eve at the top of a family tree. Dr. Azazel weren't nothing to the main complaint. He was something like a stepson of the step-step-step-half-brother. But one step at a time, said Carmel, and he was her job for today." (my favorite passage, at p. 129)
POPPY SHAKESPEARE was made into a (British)-TV-movie in 2008, starring Anna Maxwell Martin as N. and Naomie Harris as Poppy; you should be able to find it at YouTube. But I hope you'll enjoy reading the book!
Thanks for reading.
September 6, 2024
A tragi-comic satire on the mental health system in this country that pulls no punches. If you are going to write about mental health and mental illness you’d better not be an outsider writing about what you haven’t experienced. Clare Allan is not an outsider, not at all. She spent ten years inside a variety of the mental health institutions of the 1990s and has been sectioned under the Mental Health Act. In an interview she lists some of the things she has been diagnosed with:
“..paranoid psychosis, psychotic depression, developing schizophrenia, manic depression, major psychotic disorder and borderline personality - a list which she claims was "about as much use as covering a parcel with 'fragile' stickers."”
The lists of medication Allan has been on is equally impressive, including medications to counteract the effects of other medications. She explains the humour in the book by saying that:
“It was just a case of doing the patients justice. The longer I stayed there the more I realised how people use humour to cope with completely desperate situations.”
The novel itself revolves around the Dorothy Fish hospital, and especially the day care units, whose attendees live in the run down council estates surrounding it. The story is told by N, who is tasked to show round a newcomer called Poppy Shakespeare. Unlike most of the denizens of the hospital Poppy is insistent that she is sane and does not want to be there. However she needs legal aid to help her prove she is sane and to get legal aid she has to be on “MAD money” (the term Allan uses for welfare benefits and she creates a complex system of assessment) and to get “MAD money you need to have a mental illness. This is the catch 22 the novel revolves around.
One of the characteristics of the book is N’s narrative voice, it does not conform to any linguistic rules and punctuation and grammar are also casualties of N’s distinctive train of thought. She starts the novel:
“I’m not being funny but you can’t blame me for what happened. All I done was try and help Poppy out”
At a monthly assessment N is asked a question:
"Do you find it hard to make decisions? I seen the trap straight off: if I said I strongly agreed they could say I was lying on account of I just made one, and if I said I disagreed they could say there were nothing the matter. So in the end I gone with neither agree nor disagree."
Those who attend the day centre are called “dribblers”. The sane are known as “sniffs” and full time residents who live on the higher floors of the hospital are known as “flops”. The supporting characters can appear cartoonlike because of the names Allan gives them: Middle Class Michael, Astrid Arsewipe, Slasher Sue (so-named because of her self-harming), Brian the Butcher, Verna the Vomit (bulimic), Marta the coffin (so depressed that, "hearses used to toot her as they gone past down the street") and so on. This is close to the bone and would be unacceptable from the so-called normal but Allan pulls it off and her insights into the systems and its inhabitants make the novel terribly sad as well as funny. All of those involved with Dorothy Fish are desperate to stay there and not be discharged because it is the only life they know. However we are in the 1990s and there is a drive to improve outcomes and improve the system and so discharges begin to happen and those discharged are cast out with no support and often disintegrate. This I know to be true as in my work I still come across ex residents of some of these institutions. They are invariably socially isolated, often self-neglecting and have been totally abandoned by the state which is no longer interested in them.
This isn’t a novel looking for sympathy for the mentally ill, it isn’t a memoir or autobiography, but it is a satire on mental health policy. N is a spectacularly unreliable narrator, but she has some insight into her life and that of her friend Poppy. It illustrates many of the concerns of the recovery movement. It is easy to get sidetracked by the language but the message is a powerful one. As the quote from Chekov at the beginning says:
‘Since prisons and madhouses exist, why, somebody is bound to sit in them’
“..paranoid psychosis, psychotic depression, developing schizophrenia, manic depression, major psychotic disorder and borderline personality - a list which she claims was "about as much use as covering a parcel with 'fragile' stickers."”
The lists of medication Allan has been on is equally impressive, including medications to counteract the effects of other medications. She explains the humour in the book by saying that:
“It was just a case of doing the patients justice. The longer I stayed there the more I realised how people use humour to cope with completely desperate situations.”
The novel itself revolves around the Dorothy Fish hospital, and especially the day care units, whose attendees live in the run down council estates surrounding it. The story is told by N, who is tasked to show round a newcomer called Poppy Shakespeare. Unlike most of the denizens of the hospital Poppy is insistent that she is sane and does not want to be there. However she needs legal aid to help her prove she is sane and to get legal aid she has to be on “MAD money” (the term Allan uses for welfare benefits and she creates a complex system of assessment) and to get “MAD money you need to have a mental illness. This is the catch 22 the novel revolves around.
One of the characteristics of the book is N’s narrative voice, it does not conform to any linguistic rules and punctuation and grammar are also casualties of N’s distinctive train of thought. She starts the novel:
“I’m not being funny but you can’t blame me for what happened. All I done was try and help Poppy out”
At a monthly assessment N is asked a question:
"Do you find it hard to make decisions? I seen the trap straight off: if I said I strongly agreed they could say I was lying on account of I just made one, and if I said I disagreed they could say there were nothing the matter. So in the end I gone with neither agree nor disagree."
Those who attend the day centre are called “dribblers”. The sane are known as “sniffs” and full time residents who live on the higher floors of the hospital are known as “flops”. The supporting characters can appear cartoonlike because of the names Allan gives them: Middle Class Michael, Astrid Arsewipe, Slasher Sue (so-named because of her self-harming), Brian the Butcher, Verna the Vomit (bulimic), Marta the coffin (so depressed that, "hearses used to toot her as they gone past down the street") and so on. This is close to the bone and would be unacceptable from the so-called normal but Allan pulls it off and her insights into the systems and its inhabitants make the novel terribly sad as well as funny. All of those involved with Dorothy Fish are desperate to stay there and not be discharged because it is the only life they know. However we are in the 1990s and there is a drive to improve outcomes and improve the system and so discharges begin to happen and those discharged are cast out with no support and often disintegrate. This I know to be true as in my work I still come across ex residents of some of these institutions. They are invariably socially isolated, often self-neglecting and have been totally abandoned by the state which is no longer interested in them.
This isn’t a novel looking for sympathy for the mentally ill, it isn’t a memoir or autobiography, but it is a satire on mental health policy. N is a spectacularly unreliable narrator, but she has some insight into her life and that of her friend Poppy. It illustrates many of the concerns of the recovery movement. It is easy to get sidetracked by the language but the message is a powerful one. As the quote from Chekov at the beginning says:
‘Since prisons and madhouses exist, why, somebody is bound to sit in them’
April 27, 2009
In the unusual position of preferring the tv adaptation of this, which I really enjoyed, rather than the book. Not sure I would have continued with it if I hadn't watched the dramatisation and known where it was going.
It's a great idea, a satirical look at the mental health system where the world is divided into 'dribblers' and 'sniffs',from the viewpoint of N, who was a 'dribbler' before she was born.
Poppy Shakespeare is thrown into the system when she fails a personality test and has to prove she's mad to get the MAD money needed to finance her appeal to prove she's 'normal'. It's bureaucratic nightmare, the govt has appointed a new Mad Tsar to improve 'cure' statistics, and the patients sole ambition is to protect their 'mad' status.
Lots of humour, almost Monty Python-like much of the time and alternatively tragic as Poppy suffers from her catch-22 situation. It did get a little tiring sometimes as N over explained the numerous characters and why they had the nicknames they did, several times I skipped a few sides as it wasn't going anywhere.
Worked better as a drama than a book for me.
A mistake too, I think mid-book where Saffra's birthdate is mentioned by N as being 23rdJan and later by Poppy as being 6/12/1998??
It's a great idea, a satirical look at the mental health system where the world is divided into 'dribblers' and 'sniffs',from the viewpoint of N, who was a 'dribbler' before she was born.
Poppy Shakespeare is thrown into the system when she fails a personality test and has to prove she's mad to get the MAD money needed to finance her appeal to prove she's 'normal'. It's bureaucratic nightmare, the govt has appointed a new Mad Tsar to improve 'cure' statistics, and the patients sole ambition is to protect their 'mad' status.
Lots of humour, almost Monty Python-like much of the time and alternatively tragic as Poppy suffers from her catch-22 situation. It did get a little tiring sometimes as N over explained the numerous characters and why they had the nicknames they did, several times I skipped a few sides as it wasn't going anywhere.
Worked better as a drama than a book for me.
A mistake too, I think mid-book where Saffra's birthdate is mentioned by N as being 23rdJan and later by Poppy as being 6/12/1998??
February 17, 2008
Who is mad? Who is sane? Who decides? Welcome to the Dorothy Fish, a day hospital in North London! N has been a patient here for thirteen years. Day after day she sits smoking in the common room, swapping medication and comparing mad money rates. Like all the patients at the Dorothy Fish, N's chief ambition is never to get discharged. Each year when her annual assessment comes round, she is relieved to learn that she hasn't got any better. Then in walks Poppy Shakespeare in her six-inch skirt and twelve-inch heels. She is certain she isn't mentally ill and desperate to return to her life outside. Though baffled by Poppy's attitude, N agrees to help. Together they plot to gain Poppy's freedom. But in a world where everything's upside-down, are they crazy enough to upset the system? Funny, brilliant and moving, "Poppy Shakespeare" looks at madness from the inside, questioning our mental health system and the borders we place between sanity and insanity.
OK that’s the spiel off the back of the book, and it really is a great summation. I so enjoyed this book. It really is one of the best books I’ve read in ages. I don’t think I’ve laughed, cried, got mad at the system, with a book as much as I did with this one in a very long time. GET IT NOW!
OK that’s the spiel off the back of the book, and it really is a great summation. I so enjoyed this book. It really is one of the best books I’ve read in ages. I don’t think I’ve laughed, cried, got mad at the system, with a book as much as I did with this one in a very long time. GET IT NOW!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 7, 2008
The first two chapters contained a lot of swearing without really adding any character to the book - it was like she did it to prove she could. However after this the swearing died down (was still there but added to the character). I nearly gave it a three, except for the ending which was very disappointing - not so much the actual events in the end but that it just eneded.
Its narrated by N and takes place in a day pyshiatric clinic. N comes from a long line of family members having mental health issues and them commiting suicide, and has been at the clinic for over a decade. Then Poppy comes along (the title of the book) being made to go to the day clinic after some bazar job training interviews and wants N to help prove that she's not mad. N however can't understand why anyone would want to leave the clinic and meanwhile tries to "help" her new fiend only for it to be made worse.
There were 8 CDs and just over 8 hrs of listening time. The narator did a pretty good job and it was a story you could tune off to occassionaly and still pick up what was going on. In the end it was the ending that dispappointed me and steered me towards the 2 stars instead of 3.
Its narrated by N and takes place in a day pyshiatric clinic. N comes from a long line of family members having mental health issues and them commiting suicide, and has been at the clinic for over a decade. Then Poppy comes along (the title of the book) being made to go to the day clinic after some bazar job training interviews and wants N to help prove that she's not mad. N however can't understand why anyone would want to leave the clinic and meanwhile tries to "help" her new fiend only for it to be made worse.
There were 8 CDs and just over 8 hrs of listening time. The narator did a pretty good job and it was a story you could tune off to occassionaly and still pick up what was going on. In the end it was the ending that dispappointed me and steered me towards the 2 stars instead of 3.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 14, 2014
This book has a really interesting look into the mental health system, a notoriously underfunded and misunderstood sector of health care. N has been a part of the system since she was little, which she states is destiny, because all of her family before her was ill as well. One day she is selected to guide a new patient, Poppy, who believes there is nothing wrong with her mentally. As the book progresses, N gives a very honest look into how mental health is so poorly understood and how the system fails the people who need it most. Patients are discharged and either re-admitted soon after or end up committing suicide due to the lack of support in the community. Patients concerns are not heard, or just simply ignored. And a seemingly well patient is turned mad by a supposed control experiment that was instated simply to get better funding and recognition from the government. It's terrifying to think that there are so many people out there unwell mentally, and they're a part of a system that simply fails them.
July 10, 2007
I'm giving this book four stars in my opinion (I thought about giving it 5!) but its not for everyone. Its a particular sort of portrayal of life within and around a mental health unit in the UK, written from the point of view of one of the day patients. You know how sometimes you read a first hand accout (like A Million Little Pieces) and wonder how on earth the person could have written this? Well this is a book which will NOT leave you asking that! Its a fantastic read but you've have to be willing to read it, and even more so be happy and interested to know that this could be the way someone out there actually see the world.
February 21, 2011
Frank, amusing and dark, I thought this book was a good read for anyone interested in mental health. I found the writing style very frustrating at first, as it's not often you read a book written in anything but eloquent prose. But once I got used to it I found that the style really made the book. It just wouldnt have been so frank and funny if it wasnt written the way that N thinks. It's hard to know where reality ends and where N's world begins, or whether she is even ill at all. Working in mental health myself I have an understanding of the way service users become institutionalised but the extent of this in the book still shocked me!
August 26, 2017
I really disliked this book due to the way it's written. I understand that the mentality of the main character is one of a 9-year-old at most but the language used makes it an uncomfortable read.
November 11, 2018
It's not the done thing to laugh at people with mental illness, but while reading Poppy Shakespeare by Clare Allan it is almost impossible to suppress a little chuckle every now and then.
The tale of Poppy Shakespeare is narrated by N (we never know her by any other handle), a long-term client of the Dorothy Fish day care centre for people with mental illness. Clients spend their days at the centre, and return home for nights, weekends and public holidays.
Poppy is forced to attend the Dorothy Fish centre, despite the fact that she believes she is completely sane. To be able to access a lawyer to help her get out, she must be in receipt of government benefits, known as MAD money, and to get the funding, Poppy needs to prove she is mentally ill. The classic Catch-22 situation!
N, who is appointed as Poppy's guide, and with whom she quickly develops a strong friendship, decides to help Poppy navigate the complex forms and bureaucratic processes that are required to demonstrate her mental illness, so she can receive MAD money support.
The story is related in the first person by N, using her particularly colloquial style of speaking (which will drive some grammar purists nuts), which is why the tragi-comic events described are so often laugh out loud funny.
It is quickly apparent that there is a strict hierarchy or class system amongst the patients - it is OK, even honorable, to be a dribbler, but certainly not a flop!
I won't say much more about the plot, except that there is an underlying deeps sense of sadness and despair beneath the humorous style of relating the lives and fates of this group of peculiar characters.
Clare Allan has written a lively satire of the British mental health care system (I understand some from personal experience) that will keep you really engaged from beginning to end.
The tale of Poppy Shakespeare is narrated by N (we never know her by any other handle), a long-term client of the Dorothy Fish day care centre for people with mental illness. Clients spend their days at the centre, and return home for nights, weekends and public holidays.
Poppy is forced to attend the Dorothy Fish centre, despite the fact that she believes she is completely sane. To be able to access a lawyer to help her get out, she must be in receipt of government benefits, known as MAD money, and to get the funding, Poppy needs to prove she is mentally ill. The classic Catch-22 situation!
N, who is appointed as Poppy's guide, and with whom she quickly develops a strong friendship, decides to help Poppy navigate the complex forms and bureaucratic processes that are required to demonstrate her mental illness, so she can receive MAD money support.
The story is related in the first person by N, using her particularly colloquial style of speaking (which will drive some grammar purists nuts), which is why the tragi-comic events described are so often laugh out loud funny.
It is quickly apparent that there is a strict hierarchy or class system amongst the patients - it is OK, even honorable, to be a dribbler, but certainly not a flop!
I won't say much more about the plot, except that there is an underlying deeps sense of sadness and despair beneath the humorous style of relating the lives and fates of this group of peculiar characters.
Clare Allan has written a lively satire of the British mental health care system (I understand some from personal experience) that will keep you really engaged from beginning to end.
August 25, 2019
I might change the amount of stars at some point. I started with a general feeling of "i like it, but nothing more than that" but I can't stop thinking about this book.
January 17, 2025
Worthwhile story about Mental Health, and institutionalized medicine.
Sometimes it dragged more than I would have liked.
Sometimes it dragged more than I would have liked.
June 26, 2020
I found it confusing, especially the ending...what really happened? The writing style didn’t help.
April 19, 2019
Clever, funny, moving and written with a distinctive voice - I love it. I only knock off a star because the last third seemed a wee bit 'padded', but, other than that - superb.
November 10, 2017
This was a stunning work written wth a full heart. I was captivated instantly by N and Poppy. Weaved together with a clever wit and humour, I just couldn’t put it down. Behind all the funny stuff was a heartbreaking story that left me deeply touched. Wow! Clare Allen, when’s your next coming out???
November 2, 2017
The quotes from reviews on the back cover of the book make a number of comparisons to Catch-22. These are well placed given the central thesis of the book — you can't get released from a psychiatric hospital unless you're sane but the lawyers who handle the appeals need proof that you're ill to claim the legal fees...
One thing that, for me, detracted significantly from the book is that the narrative is written from the point of view of N, once of the patients, and is written in Norf Lunnon style. It's perhaps a failing or kind of old-fashionedness on my part, but I always like books to be written in 'proper' English rather than dialect. This was better than other books of the kind but it still grated.
I also felt that the ending was a bit improbable, but ultimately this isn't a book about the plot so much as being a study of some interesting characters and the institutions that fail to help them realise any potential.
One thing that, for me, detracted significantly from the book is that the narrative is written from the point of view of N, once of the patients, and is written in Norf Lunnon style. It's perhaps a failing or kind of old-fashionedness on my part, but I always like books to be written in 'proper' English rather than dialect. This was better than other books of the kind but it still grated.
I also felt that the ending was a bit improbable, but ultimately this isn't a book about the plot so much as being a study of some interesting characters and the institutions that fail to help them realise any potential.
May 17, 2016
The novel is a satire on the Blairite reforms of in-patient mental health, which forced hospitals to show they were producing good results (making the mad less mad against a benchmark of the non-admitted) in order to maintain funding and secure 'beacon' status (and so a degree of autonomy). To what lengths would put-upon but essentially idealistic doctors go to keep on offering care?
The novel is not narrated, though, from a doctor's viewpoint but that of a patient, a woman in her early thirties with an awful past of insanity, neglect and abuse. Her mother, who dies under a train at Mile End, would take her up to the Ally Pally train tracks to lie down, where she was once discovered. She was a glamorous, raddled figure who once took her daughter to a fancy restaurant and danced taking her clothes off; once, she turned up at one of the narrator, N's, fifty-two foster placings in a car with tailfins to take her daughter out on a jaunt. N. has been a 'dribbler', the ground-floor patients' word for a mad person living in Darkwoods, the Dantean-named sink estate at the base of the north London mental hospital, from pretty much before birth. The more severely ill, self-harming mental patients who sleep on the upper floors are the 'flops' and the sane, so arrogant, the 'sniffs'. Sniff Road leads out of the estate ... but to where? The novel is the story of N.'s energising and ultimately beneficial (for her) friendship with a new patient, Poppy Shakespeare, a woman slightly older than her, with a fallen-apart relationship with the sketchy, posh father of her six year-old child, a stroppy manner and many of the narrator's verbal idiosyncracies. Much of the writing, in particular the patterning of catchphrases, 'just sayin', 'not being funny or nuthink', 'do you know what I'm sayin' ', ' 'avin a pop', 'don't mean to be rude or nuthink', is gloriously unbuttoned and bracingly funny, nothwithstanding the sobriety and sadness of much of the book.
The novel is not narrated, though, from a doctor's viewpoint but that of a patient, a woman in her early thirties with an awful past of insanity, neglect and abuse. Her mother, who dies under a train at Mile End, would take her up to the Ally Pally train tracks to lie down, where she was once discovered. She was a glamorous, raddled figure who once took her daughter to a fancy restaurant and danced taking her clothes off; once, she turned up at one of the narrator, N's, fifty-two foster placings in a car with tailfins to take her daughter out on a jaunt. N. has been a 'dribbler', the ground-floor patients' word for a mad person living in Darkwoods, the Dantean-named sink estate at the base of the north London mental hospital, from pretty much before birth. The more severely ill, self-harming mental patients who sleep on the upper floors are the 'flops' and the sane, so arrogant, the 'sniffs'. Sniff Road leads out of the estate ... but to where? The novel is the story of N.'s energising and ultimately beneficial (for her) friendship with a new patient, Poppy Shakespeare, a woman slightly older than her, with a fallen-apart relationship with the sketchy, posh father of her six year-old child, a stroppy manner and many of the narrator's verbal idiosyncracies. Much of the writing, in particular the patterning of catchphrases, 'just sayin', 'not being funny or nuthink', 'do you know what I'm sayin' ', ' 'avin a pop', 'don't mean to be rude or nuthink', is gloriously unbuttoned and bracingly funny, nothwithstanding the sobriety and sadness of much of the book.
July 22, 2015
There really wasn't much in this novel that I could say I enjoyed.
It's narrated by a day-patient of the Dorothy Fish, a mental institution in London. She writes in exactly the same way you'd imagine her to speak, and this took a lot of getting used to, particularly her constant use of the phrase "would of/could of" instead of the proper "would have/could have". This is blatant nit-picking, of course, since it's not Allan's language, but the narrator's. Still, I was really annoyed, and the voice I hear inside my head when I read couldn't quite come to grips with the accent.
There was some good humour in the book, the narrator, 'N', was such a character and I particularly enjoyed it when she insulted people by "showing them the back of my head." I do feel that the constant repetitions, although they managed to convey N's apparent madness, got tiring in places. I found my eyes to be glazing over more than once as I was trying to wade through the drivel.
The ending was very, very disappointing and didn't make much sense to me. In fact, the entire novel didn't much a great deal of sense to me, and was a small step away from nonsense the entire time.
In all, this was a confusing book that I'm still trying to get my head around. It was a lovely idea in theory, but I really think it's been very badly executed. There is, however, a television adaptation available on 4od which I haven't seen as of yet, but which I've heard quite good things about. I just wouldn't recommend the book.
It's narrated by a day-patient of the Dorothy Fish, a mental institution in London. She writes in exactly the same way you'd imagine her to speak, and this took a lot of getting used to, particularly her constant use of the phrase "would of/could of" instead of the proper "would have/could have". This is blatant nit-picking, of course, since it's not Allan's language, but the narrator's. Still, I was really annoyed, and the voice I hear inside my head when I read couldn't quite come to grips with the accent.
There was some good humour in the book, the narrator, 'N', was such a character and I particularly enjoyed it when she insulted people by "showing them the back of my head." I do feel that the constant repetitions, although they managed to convey N's apparent madness, got tiring in places. I found my eyes to be glazing over more than once as I was trying to wade through the drivel.
The ending was very, very disappointing and didn't make much sense to me. In fact, the entire novel didn't much a great deal of sense to me, and was a small step away from nonsense the entire time.
In all, this was a confusing book that I'm still trying to get my head around. It was a lovely idea in theory, but I really think it's been very badly executed. There is, however, a television adaptation available on 4od which I haven't seen as of yet, but which I've heard quite good things about. I just wouldn't recommend the book.
June 3, 2008
An enjoyable send up of mental health institutions, bureaucracy generally, and government. The narrator, N, is a patient or "client" of a day mental health hospital -- she spends her days there, but lives in her own apartment. The story she tells is of a new patient named Poppy Shakespeare who arrives in the hospital insisting that nothing is wrong and that she's being unfairly forced into treatment. The narrative style is somewhat stream-of-consciousness (and a "mentally ill" consciousness at that), but it manages to work reasonably well most of the time. N is a classic unreliable narrator -- it's clear from the beginning that the reader is going to need to figure out the "facts" through the lens of a somewhat twisted and self-centered narrator. Those offended by curse words should avoid this book as the f-bomb is dropped repeatedly. Overall, the author manages to do a good job of expressing the frustration with the system experienced by its patients and the stupidity of certain programs.
September 9, 2013
This is Claire Allen's first novel and was shortlisted for The Guardian First Book award . Subsequently it was made into a drama on Channel 4 (where else) ? It is an angry, funny and often frustrating polemic on the state of mental health services in the 1990"s. The narrator a woman called N is that for narrator or butter, guides Poppy, the new inmate and the reader through the various, often incomprehensible layers of the Abaddon ( Abandon) mental health facility in North London, although for some strange reason it feels like it should be the Bronx speaking a strange dialect that is not quite English and more akin to the language of Alex in Burgess's Clockwork Orange. While the apparently danish Poppy is broken and maddened by the system , N thrives and leaves both the institution and her own could have been narrative. Skillful yes. Thought provoking yes, enjoyable now. In fact I detected a somewhat distasteful theme in N's thriving on Poppy's decline a bit like the author herself making art/c'ash out of the plight of those living with mental health issues in their lives
March 2, 2013
I found this book at e@curve and bought two. One for me and one for Shima Scarlett. As I expected, both of us love to book. If you are familiar with my choice of books, you might have already realized that 50% of the book I bought are those that I can relate with. so with this book, it is about being in a psychiatric ward and surrounded with people with various exceptional problems. If your really want to know what happens in this type of closed and guarded vicinity , you must not only read, GIRL interrupted or Man Interrupted. This book is similar with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It covers a lot of psycological issues that seem to be normal to me but might be abnormal to you. It is a story about a girl name Poppy who has to stay or be present in a psychiatric ward. Check out the movie. !!!
June 25, 2009
A brilliant book that pulls no punches in its biting assessment of Mental Health services in the UK.
I did listen to much of this on audio though did also read parts. The benefit of audio was the flavour of N's London accent that was well executed by the reader.
I even found myself falling back into London slang myself after a few days with it, you do know what I mean? :)
I have great admiration for Clare Allan drawing on her own experiences as a 'service user' as well as continuing to write on mental health issues as a journalist. As N observes in the book, those with mental health issues are so easily rendered invisible.
Aside from the dark humour it is quite tragic though there is also warmth and hope.
February 2, 2011
I also found this book, which I'd never have heard of otherwise, through Nick Hornby's review of it in Shakespeare Wrote for Money. Thank you Nick Hornby! I loved Poppy Shakespeare; I'd expected to find it funny, but not laugh out loud funny (which it is--I embarrasssed myself a couple of times by giggling on the train). It's also incredibly smart and at times incredibly moving, and honestly like no other book I've ever read before. Part of that is the narrator's voice, which is a hilarious North London (?) accented one, chatty and goofy and totally believable to me. Part of it is the subject matter (patients in a psychiatric day hospital, and the literal insanity of the system they're part of). I was sad to finish. It's Clare Allan's first novel. I hope she writes another soon.
October 26, 2011
Been listening to this audiobook whilst walking. Due to the frequent swearing, was unsuitable for in-car listening.Really don't know what to make of this book. Kept expecting a 'reveal' about the Dorothy Fish (the institution that the narrator, N, and the eponymous character attend), which never really came about. It was the 26 inmates, each having a name representing a letter of the alphabet that made me expect a plot twist. For instance, Poppy Shakespeare was admitted only when Pollyanna left. The circumstances of Poppy's recommendation that led to her admission to the Dorothy Fish were also peculiar and I wondered whether this would be explained. These were intriguing plotlines but the unreliable narrator meant that they would not be fully explained.
August 26, 2008
Written with acerbic wit and grim irony, Poppy Shakespeare satirises the current situations regarding the health system, mental health treatment and institutions. The dark humour of a patient being involuntarily committed after having taken a 'personality assessment', then having to prove she's mad to get legal help to try to prove she's sane, has elements of the absurd, and would be absurd - if it wasn't terribly close to how in reality government departments are running services these days. If Ben Elton took on the mental health services in Britain, he'd come up with something like this. As it is, Clare Allan got there first, and she's well worthy of the comparison to him.
December 3, 2011
It's been compared to a cross between Catch-22 and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. I'd add that it's Faulknerian and Kafkaesque.
Not an easy read, and not flawless (it's not exactly what I'd call "action-packed," for instance), but a genuinely new take on the mental institution genre from the perspective of a lifer.
N's voice is REAL. It's infiltrated my thoughts, and I keep finding myself saying, "Do you know what I am saying?" Poppy herself is not as compelling as I thought she would be, but she still serves as a good foil for N.
All in all, an amazing first novel.
Not an easy read, and not flawless (it's not exactly what I'd call "action-packed," for instance), but a genuinely new take on the mental institution genre from the perspective of a lifer.
N's voice is REAL. It's infiltrated my thoughts, and I keep finding myself saying, "Do you know what I am saying?" Poppy herself is not as compelling as I thought she would be, but she still serves as a good foil for N.
All in all, an amazing first novel.
January 25, 2016
This is an extraordinarily difficult book to review. The story is difficult to read because it is drowning in hopelessness. It is also told in first person narration by a mentally ill woman who has a strong North London accent. So not easy vocabulary to follow. But it is, according to reviewers, a sadly accurate depiction of the sorry state of mental health "care" in 1990s UK. In a nutshell, it explores how society determines whether or not a person might be "mad", To use British vernacular. I think I appreciate it more now that I am finished and can see it as a whole. I didn't enjoy reading it though. Even though I can admit to the importance of its message.
February 12, 2011
Bloody brilliant.
I actually listened to the audio version over the coure of a couple weeks (during my commute). I think it would have been exhausting to *read* read (a reviewer concurred: "There's a profusion of names, colloquialisms, and stream of thought sentences in this novel, and they leave you exhausted.") And, now that I have heard the story and have all the pictures in my head I would distrust a TV / film adaptation to get it right. (Although I did read a good review of the BBC TV adaptation.) Anyway, I reckon that audio is really the best medium for this one.
I actually listened to the audio version over the coure of a couple weeks (during my commute). I think it would have been exhausting to *read* read (a reviewer concurred: "There's a profusion of names, colloquialisms, and stream of thought sentences in this novel, and they leave you exhausted.") And, now that I have heard the story and have all the pictures in my head I would distrust a TV / film adaptation to get it right. (Although I did read a good review of the BBC TV adaptation.) Anyway, I reckon that audio is really the best medium for this one.
June 29, 2011
I enjoyed it less as I continued reading- at first I thought "wow, what a neat take on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", but after a while the voice of the narrator started to wear me down, and began distracting me from the book itself. And this is probably due to the mental issues of the narrator, but parts of the book make no sense. Why was Poppy institutionalized in the first place? How did the narrator get released? I think if the book were shorter (and I love Russian Classics, so coming from me that says a lot, haha) i think it would have been more interesting.
July 25, 2011
I picked this book up thinking that it would be a nice change from what I normally read. It was about a hospital for mentally ill patients and how one character fights to show how she is not sick in the head and should not be there. It was okay. It was also another book that I did not have to pick up and read, but was there. The writing style is broken up, as if it took on a patients brain skills. As the sentences are hard to follow at times and some are repetitive. Which was kinda good. However, because of that, at the start it was hard to keep focused.
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