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Bad IdeasChemicals
The people of the lost English-Welsh border town Goregree are losers and weirdos, sometimes pathetic, sometimes terrible. They all long for something more, but are trapped by poverty, disease, and addiction to a unique local drug. Inspired by the author’s hometown of Bridgend, Bad Ideas \ Chemicals follows a group of 20-somethings on a bad night out in a depressed, strange little town.
120 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2017
55 people want to read
About the author
Lloyd Markham
4 books9 followersLloyd Markham was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He spent his childhood in Zimbabwe before moving to and settling in south Wales when he was thirteen.
His first novel Bad Ideas\Chemicals was published by Parthian Books in 2017. It was nominated for Wales Book of The Year 2018 and won a Betty Trask award for first time author under 35.
In 2019 he was awarded a bursary from Literature Wales to develop his second novel Fox Bites which is due to release in 2024.
That same year an extract from Bad Ideas\Chemicals ‘Mercy’ was included in the anthology of young Welsh and European authors 'Zero Hours on the Boulevard: Tales of Independence and Belonging (Parthian Books, 2019)'.
Following this he was selected to take part in the Ulysses Shelter residency programme where he contributed a number of creative works and took part in residencies in both Slovenia and Greece.
His first novel Bad Ideas\Chemicals was published by Parthian Books in 2017. It was nominated for Wales Book of The Year 2018 and won a Betty Trask award for first time author under 35.
In 2019 he was awarded a bursary from Literature Wales to develop his second novel Fox Bites which is due to release in 2024.
That same year an extract from Bad Ideas\Chemicals ‘Mercy’ was included in the anthology of young Welsh and European authors 'Zero Hours on the Boulevard: Tales of Independence and Belonging (Parthian Books, 2019)'.
Following this he was selected to take part in the Ulysses Shelter residency programme where he contributed a number of creative works and took part in residencies in both Slovenia and Greece.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 2, 2017
This book has been likened to some cross over of the following books: A Clockwork Orange, Brave New World, Naked Lunch, Stand By Me and some others (not all in the same review.)
It’s not. Bad Ideas/Chemicals is a book totally defying categorisation.
Goregree is a half-finished project, discarded by its maker. Or stopped midway because of the unearthing of another settlement there before. Or a conglomeration of houses that somehow managed to become a place. Does it matter? No. The truth is: living in Goregree sucks.
It’s become a joke. The phrase ‘I’m not from round here,’ is passed around by all of its inhabitants. Because, even though some of them were actually born there, no one feels it belongs to them. No one wants it to belong to them. All it has going for it is a Star Trek themed bar, a constant supply of oddballs, and seemingly limitless supplies of GOTE.
GOTE is a ‘Bad Idea/Chemical.’ Made from foetuses whose mother’s have ingested poison from the ‘roaches’ (that look nothing like cockroaches) this drug takes you on highs that no other drug does. It affects your ‘temporoparetial junction’ (don’t worry - I had to look that one up too), and causes out of body experiences. Everyone’s hooked on it. Eventually, it kills you. Unless you kill yourself first.
Fittingly, the ‘best’ job that you can find in Goregree is working for ‘Mercy:’ the NHS’ privatised company that deals with assisted dying and euthanasia. Particularly fitting for Louie, one of the central protagonists, whose father is dying of alcoholism, and feels like checking himself into ‘Mercy.’ He’s not the only one…
The characters are all whacky, interesting and well drawn. Cassandra walks around in an orange spaceship; convinced she is an alien after seeing a film about ‘Alpha Centurai’ as a child. You’d think that would be weird. Not so much in Goregree. Here, anything goes.
This book is, at times, sardonically funny, but the humour is very black. But don’t take it merely as humour. This book is actually a very well drawn comment on society today: the neglect of social and mental health care, the effects of parenting, and the casual substance misuse that is rife in small towns. Markham isn’t afraid to write about big issues.
All in all, ‘Bad Ideas/Chemicals’ is a unique, warped and very thought-provoking read. One to read in an hour, then ponder over for ten times longer.
Thank you to Parthian Press for the chance to read this book; all thoughts and comments are my own.
It’s not. Bad Ideas/Chemicals is a book totally defying categorisation.
Goregree is a half-finished project, discarded by its maker. Or stopped midway because of the unearthing of another settlement there before. Or a conglomeration of houses that somehow managed to become a place. Does it matter? No. The truth is: living in Goregree sucks.
It’s become a joke. The phrase ‘I’m not from round here,’ is passed around by all of its inhabitants. Because, even though some of them were actually born there, no one feels it belongs to them. No one wants it to belong to them. All it has going for it is a Star Trek themed bar, a constant supply of oddballs, and seemingly limitless supplies of GOTE.
GOTE is a ‘Bad Idea/Chemical.’ Made from foetuses whose mother’s have ingested poison from the ‘roaches’ (that look nothing like cockroaches) this drug takes you on highs that no other drug does. It affects your ‘temporoparetial junction’ (don’t worry - I had to look that one up too), and causes out of body experiences. Everyone’s hooked on it. Eventually, it kills you. Unless you kill yourself first.
Fittingly, the ‘best’ job that you can find in Goregree is working for ‘Mercy:’ the NHS’ privatised company that deals with assisted dying and euthanasia. Particularly fitting for Louie, one of the central protagonists, whose father is dying of alcoholism, and feels like checking himself into ‘Mercy.’ He’s not the only one…
The characters are all whacky, interesting and well drawn. Cassandra walks around in an orange spaceship; convinced she is an alien after seeing a film about ‘Alpha Centurai’ as a child. You’d think that would be weird. Not so much in Goregree. Here, anything goes.
This book is, at times, sardonically funny, but the humour is very black. But don’t take it merely as humour. This book is actually a very well drawn comment on society today: the neglect of social and mental health care, the effects of parenting, and the casual substance misuse that is rife in small towns. Markham isn’t afraid to write about big issues.
All in all, ‘Bad Ideas/Chemicals’ is a unique, warped and very thought-provoking read. One to read in an hour, then ponder over for ten times longer.
Thank you to Parthian Press for the chance to read this book; all thoughts and comments are my own.
September 5, 2025
i feel so lucky that i stumbled across this criminally underrated book in waterstones?! another strange book for the collection; my favourite genre seems to be books with an inexplicable plot
December 27, 2020
For all the praise this book got, I really don't think it was that amazing. I usually find something good in every book and am hesitant to say I didn't like it at all, but this was just 80% bad writing and 20% referencing cool but not unique philosophical concepts.
To start with, it's more of a short story rather than a novel and could've been summed up in about 10 pages. There's just not enough happening for the length of the book, even though it is a very short book. It is also kind of told in reverse which can be a cool technique, only it made me not really care about the characters because you don't learn anything substantial about any of them until the last few pages.
It also didn't sit right with me that suicide is casually portrayed as "just another bad idea" as if it's on the same level as staying up late or having one too many cocktails.
I didn't enjoy reading the first half at all, I skimmed through parts of it to see what was happening because the details in the language didn't seem relevant. It seemed like the author was going out of his way to avoid creating suspension. There were some interesting ideas but they were described so blandly, coldly and without emotion that it never really gripped me. Instead of creating an atmosphere, the author simply states everything the reader needs to know in an explicit list of facts. In combination with the excessive repetition of the book title (throwing the terms "bad chemicals" and "bad ideas" into random sentences on every other page), and the surprisingly unimaginative ways of conveying the rather surreal situation in this fictional town, it sounds like a school essay written by a 14-year-old.
There was no backstory of how the characters met and why they're friends, or why Cassandra hangs around with them if being home in time for the Lunar Window is so important to her; and why she later rushes home when her friends actually do need her.
Towards the end of the book, there was some poetic language to be found, and a few quotes I quite liked. Another interesting part of the book were the unconventional chapter titles and the "woke" attitudes towards the female body and different sexualities, calling things by name without sensationalising them, e.g. normalizing leg hair by just mentioning it causally.
I also liked the character of Louie, who is somehow described with a lot more sensitivity and emotional depth than the other characters, especially in the scene at his Mercy placement and with Jen in the car. Furthermore, I was relieved that the Alpha Centauri thing was explained further later on in the book because I had assumed it would just be stated with no backstory that Cassandra saw a film and now believed she was an alien. I really wanted to know that story.
The brief description of Alice's trip and her thoughts about mice on page 121 seemed pretty realistic and close to life, but that was the only part of the book I could relate to.
(SPOILER:)
The story is basically about a "bad town" where everyone is walking around half dead and depressed. The climax is learning how the fictional - deadly - drug GOTE is produced, and then they all kill themselves. That is the only plot. The reasons for this are not explored any further.
Because of the lack in character depth and emotion, I can't even say it was a depressing book. It just didn't make me feel anything. Maybe that was the author's intention, who knows.
Some cool quotes, at least:
"No. I think we're the same. We just do things differently. I turn everything outward. He turns everything inward."
"I suppose it's a bit like how some people are with junk food. No actually not so much junk food as bland food - like rice crackers or something. It's not exactly nutritional, you're not even sure if you enjoy the taste, but when the opportunity to have one pops up... well you don't even think about it, you just sort of compulsively eat them. Hmm. Though come to think of it maybe it's not quite like rice crackers at all. Rice crackers are consistently bland but sex is sometimes pretty great. Also sometimes pretty awful. Maybe sex for me is more like scratch cards. Most of the time you don't get much out of it - just cardboard and disappointment. But you keep rolling the dice for that occasional time when you feel like it's more than just two meat dolls rolling around on a mattress."
"Suddenly she feels every cell in her body, every pore in her skin, opening, closing; the electricity running through her hairs, the ground beneath her feet, every contour of the rock and the soil. She reaches out her hand. Feels the wind. The wind gliding round the edge of her fingers. The grooves in her fingerprints like rings in the core of an oak tree. The grooves in her brain like rings in the core of an oak tree. Her brain like an oak tree split. Her brain warm like the core of the Earth. The core of the Earth like her hot heart beating, beating, beating." ( don't be fooled by the amazing use of literary devices in this description, this is literally the only passage in the book that's like this, and it's wildly different from the usual writing style so maybe someone else wrote it or the author was actually on drugs )
"He's tired of talking to people. It's exhausting. The repetitious anti-climactic cycle of it. The moment just before the other person talks when anticipation is highest. The expectation. The hope that they might say something different and surprising. The sinking disappointment when they don't. And then the hollow, aching disappointment when you don't either." ( also the only passage exploring someone's thoughts like this in the whole book )
To start with, it's more of a short story rather than a novel and could've been summed up in about 10 pages. There's just not enough happening for the length of the book, even though it is a very short book. It is also kind of told in reverse which can be a cool technique, only it made me not really care about the characters because you don't learn anything substantial about any of them until the last few pages.
It also didn't sit right with me that suicide is casually portrayed as "just another bad idea" as if it's on the same level as staying up late or having one too many cocktails.
I didn't enjoy reading the first half at all, I skimmed through parts of it to see what was happening because the details in the language didn't seem relevant. It seemed like the author was going out of his way to avoid creating suspension. There were some interesting ideas but they were described so blandly, coldly and without emotion that it never really gripped me. Instead of creating an atmosphere, the author simply states everything the reader needs to know in an explicit list of facts. In combination with the excessive repetition of the book title (throwing the terms "bad chemicals" and "bad ideas" into random sentences on every other page), and the surprisingly unimaginative ways of conveying the rather surreal situation in this fictional town, it sounds like a school essay written by a 14-year-old.
There was no backstory of how the characters met and why they're friends, or why Cassandra hangs around with them if being home in time for the Lunar Window is so important to her; and why she later rushes home when her friends actually do need her.
Towards the end of the book, there was some poetic language to be found, and a few quotes I quite liked. Another interesting part of the book were the unconventional chapter titles and the "woke" attitudes towards the female body and different sexualities, calling things by name without sensationalising them, e.g. normalizing leg hair by just mentioning it causally.
I also liked the character of Louie, who is somehow described with a lot more sensitivity and emotional depth than the other characters, especially in the scene at his Mercy placement and with Jen in the car. Furthermore, I was relieved that the Alpha Centauri thing was explained further later on in the book because I had assumed it would just be stated with no backstory that Cassandra saw a film and now believed she was an alien. I really wanted to know that story.
The brief description of Alice's trip and her thoughts about mice on page 121 seemed pretty realistic and close to life, but that was the only part of the book I could relate to.
(SPOILER:)
The story is basically about a "bad town" where everyone is walking around half dead and depressed. The climax is learning how the fictional - deadly - drug GOTE is produced, and then they all kill themselves. That is the only plot. The reasons for this are not explored any further.
Because of the lack in character depth and emotion, I can't even say it was a depressing book. It just didn't make me feel anything. Maybe that was the author's intention, who knows.
Some cool quotes, at least:
"No. I think we're the same. We just do things differently. I turn everything outward. He turns everything inward."
"I suppose it's a bit like how some people are with junk food. No actually not so much junk food as bland food - like rice crackers or something. It's not exactly nutritional, you're not even sure if you enjoy the taste, but when the opportunity to have one pops up... well you don't even think about it, you just sort of compulsively eat them. Hmm. Though come to think of it maybe it's not quite like rice crackers at all. Rice crackers are consistently bland but sex is sometimes pretty great. Also sometimes pretty awful. Maybe sex for me is more like scratch cards. Most of the time you don't get much out of it - just cardboard and disappointment. But you keep rolling the dice for that occasional time when you feel like it's more than just two meat dolls rolling around on a mattress."
"Suddenly she feels every cell in her body, every pore in her skin, opening, closing; the electricity running through her hairs, the ground beneath her feet, every contour of the rock and the soil. She reaches out her hand. Feels the wind. The wind gliding round the edge of her fingers. The grooves in her fingerprints like rings in the core of an oak tree. The grooves in her brain like rings in the core of an oak tree. Her brain like an oak tree split. Her brain warm like the core of the Earth. The core of the Earth like her hot heart beating, beating, beating." ( don't be fooled by the amazing use of literary devices in this description, this is literally the only passage in the book that's like this, and it's wildly different from the usual writing style so maybe someone else wrote it or the author was actually on drugs )
"He's tired of talking to people. It's exhausting. The repetitious anti-climactic cycle of it. The moment just before the other person talks when anticipation is highest. The expectation. The hope that they might say something different and surprising. The sinking disappointment when they don't. And then the hollow, aching disappointment when you don't either." ( also the only passage exploring someone's thoughts like this in the whole book )
February 14, 2024
رواية عادية واحداث عادية ولم افهم نهايتها هل كاساندرا فتاة فضائية ام انها بشرية وتتخيل انها فضائية
الرواية عبارة عن فوضى لكنها ليست سيئة وليست بذاك السوء ، ربما ليست من النوع الذي احب
الرواية عبارة عن فوضى لكنها ليست سيئة وليست بذاك السوء ، ربما ليست من النوع الذي احب
June 26, 2020
I read that Lloyd Markham's favourite book is 'The Metamorphosis' by Franz Kafka, which helped things make sense. 'Bad Ideas / Chemicals,' has all that bleak, weird, dystopian grimness in spades, yet what makes this very entertaining novel unique is that it is somewhat lightened by an injection of dark humour and ironic hilarity.
In essence, the book destroys little-town life. In some senses Markham is making a profound social comment on the consequence of poverty, and the resulting factors that ensue: drug addiction, mental illness, zero prospects, personality crisis. Cassandra Fish, central to the novel's bizarre passage through drug farms, Star Trek themed nightclubs, dodgy parking lots and dark creature infested woods, is a hoot without even having a clue. Parading round in a spacesuit (she is determined to be beamed up [scotty] by the race of aliens she so insists she belongs), she is one of a small bunch of misfits (Billy, the much maligned musician type, and Fox, the angry, laddish tearaway) that have no direction and seemingly no clue. They are bullied, but warm one's heart by somehow sticking together. There is that hedonistic student element to the narrative; their experimentation with the town's debilitating drug, GOTE, leads to all sorts of chaos after impossibly bad trips and unconventional mayhem. Some of them end up naked and lost, others in a terrible physical state of disorientation. Markham is really, really funny at times...and I mean LOL funny. Conversation is random, insults are comical, and the sheer hopelessness of it all is...well...hilarious.
This is a dreamy read in many ways. Markham is certainly original, and his characters have the punch of John Kennedy Toole's 'Confederacy Of Dunces', the wretchedness of say, Charles Bukowski, and the the quirk of something resembling Spike Milligan. It was a thoroughly enjoyable read, and one that transports you elsewhere from the norm. Welsh publisher, Parthian, have yet again excelled themselves with their openness to experiment, and have discovered a fine voice in Lloyd Markham.
I want to know what happens next in Goregree! Will Cassandra ever find her way "home"? Will Billy's music ever be appreciated? Will Fox get off bad chemicals long enough to make something of himself? What about Alice (a hot mess)? Does Louie kill his Dad? You're left wondering what 'bad ideas' really means to these characters after all...
In essence, the book destroys little-town life. In some senses Markham is making a profound social comment on the consequence of poverty, and the resulting factors that ensue: drug addiction, mental illness, zero prospects, personality crisis. Cassandra Fish, central to the novel's bizarre passage through drug farms, Star Trek themed nightclubs, dodgy parking lots and dark creature infested woods, is a hoot without even having a clue. Parading round in a spacesuit (she is determined to be beamed up [scotty] by the race of aliens she so insists she belongs), she is one of a small bunch of misfits (Billy, the much maligned musician type, and Fox, the angry, laddish tearaway) that have no direction and seemingly no clue. They are bullied, but warm one's heart by somehow sticking together. There is that hedonistic student element to the narrative; their experimentation with the town's debilitating drug, GOTE, leads to all sorts of chaos after impossibly bad trips and unconventional mayhem. Some of them end up naked and lost, others in a terrible physical state of disorientation. Markham is really, really funny at times...and I mean LOL funny. Conversation is random, insults are comical, and the sheer hopelessness of it all is...well...hilarious.
This is a dreamy read in many ways. Markham is certainly original, and his characters have the punch of John Kennedy Toole's 'Confederacy Of Dunces', the wretchedness of say, Charles Bukowski, and the the quirk of something resembling Spike Milligan. It was a thoroughly enjoyable read, and one that transports you elsewhere from the norm. Welsh publisher, Parthian, have yet again excelled themselves with their openness to experiment, and have discovered a fine voice in Lloyd Markham.
I want to know what happens next in Goregree! Will Cassandra ever find her way "home"? Will Billy's music ever be appreciated? Will Fox get off bad chemicals long enough to make something of himself? What about Alice (a hot mess)? Does Louie kill his Dad? You're left wondering what 'bad ideas' really means to these characters after all...
July 20, 2017
I have never before put down a novel and compulsively a) caterwauled its praise on every form of social media I own, b) tweeted the author - albeit this is not really an option with T.S. Eliot and Thomas Mann - and c) picked up my neglected-since-Year-Nine copy of Slaughterhouse 5 in fascination, fully cured of my former cynicism. The latter is, admittedly, highly specific, but Lloyd Markham’s literary debt to Kurt Vonnegut is acknowledged at the offset in an epigraph from Breakfast of Champions . This debt is then richly repaid. Bad Ideas/Chemicals is a searing critique of Welsh small town society, wrapped in a dystopic film which serves not to alienate the reader but make tangible the experience of alienation; Markham adapts Vonnegut’s motifs and methods of telling the truth to expose neglectful social and mental health care, the effects of marginalisation, especially in schools, on the individual psyche; and moral absenteeism in the modern production of drugs, and in the tolerance of their everyday consumption despite the general knowledge that their prime source is highly toxic. I read it in an hour's sitting and have not been able to stop thinking about it since - it is the most thoughtful and thought-provoking contemporary novel I have read this year. It will resonate especially with the concerns of young adults about their futures in a post-Brexit society.
July 24, 2018
*In the spirit of honesty in reviews, I am interning at the publishing company and have been given a copy as a gift*
I didn't exactly enjoy this book, but that's probably because I am rather squeamish.
I was, however, completely captivated by it, reading it half laughing, half frowning. This is a crazy book, but quite wonderful if you're prepared for it. I found it simultaneously macabre, dark, depressing and humorous, if that makes any sense.
Part of the humour came from the narrative voice, which often stuck quite close to the character Cassandra Fish who thinks she is an alien waiting to be beamed up. Cassandra keeps insisting that she doesn't understand the other characters - the confusingly emotional humans - and describes the world and the events of the story with detached, scientific curiosity. The contrast between what we see happening in the dialogue and action and how Cassandra describes it is sometimes startling. The effect is often one of humour, but equally often one of sadness as it strengthens the impression of her deep and utter alienation from life and human connections. Her continued insistence on otherness and distance, however, also makes the reader - or, well, me at least - insist all the more that we do understand what the other characters are feeling and why they act like they do. Via this clever little double-trick, Markham makes his reader emotionally identify with people whom society at large would have us think are lazy drifters, unmotivated, unambitious youth, trouble-makers. But there is humanity there in the all-too-human fear of abandonment, in the yearning to connect to other people and places.
EDIT: See full review on my blog at https://bit.ly/2mB5RgW :)
I didn't exactly enjoy this book, but that's probably because I am rather squeamish.
I was, however, completely captivated by it, reading it half laughing, half frowning. This is a crazy book, but quite wonderful if you're prepared for it. I found it simultaneously macabre, dark, depressing and humorous, if that makes any sense.
Part of the humour came from the narrative voice, which often stuck quite close to the character Cassandra Fish who thinks she is an alien waiting to be beamed up. Cassandra keeps insisting that she doesn't understand the other characters - the confusingly emotional humans - and describes the world and the events of the story with detached, scientific curiosity. The contrast between what we see happening in the dialogue and action and how Cassandra describes it is sometimes startling. The effect is often one of humour, but equally often one of sadness as it strengthens the impression of her deep and utter alienation from life and human connections. Her continued insistence on otherness and distance, however, also makes the reader - or, well, me at least - insist all the more that we do understand what the other characters are feeling and why they act like they do. Via this clever little double-trick, Markham makes his reader emotionally identify with people whom society at large would have us think are lazy drifters, unmotivated, unambitious youth, trouble-makers. But there is humanity there in the all-too-human fear of abandonment, in the yearning to connect to other people and places.
EDIT: See full review on my blog at https://bit.ly/2mB5RgW :)
July 7, 2017
Strange, cracked and beautiful, alien and relatable, Bad Ideas\Chemicals is one of the most exciting, unique novels I've read in a long time; something haunting and memorable that deserves a lot of attention.
June 13, 2018
Wow. Just wow, if this doesn't become a cult classic I will be severely annoyed...
Read my full review here:
https://parthianbooksinternblog.wordp...
Read my full review here:
https://parthianbooksinternblog.wordp...
October 20, 2020
A fun short book that takes unusual turns and treats its story a bit differently. It’s like your regular friday night out, but very well written and later makes you think about stuff.
September 10, 2017
read my full review here: http://www.buzzmag.co.uk/uncategorize...
May 3, 2020
I've been lucky enough to be the one who translates this book from English to Arabic. Such a lovely light reading. The ending tho was really shocking and somehow disturbing.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews