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Needleham
'In an ideal world you would stand at a crossroads, one big white sign pointing to SANITY, and the other to MADNESS, and in the broad light of day, with the sun on your back, you would make the only possible choice you could, and trot down the hill towards safety. Why make any other choice? The trouble is that when you personally get to that crossroads it's nearly always midnight, you haven't slept for a while, and some kids have been messing with the sign.' - from Needleham
Needleham by Terry Simpson is a multi-faceted novel, full of fascinating detail and emotional depth. The writing is lucid and imaginative throughout. I was captivated from the start with the powerful descriptions of setting, and the characters. Well-meaning Luke steals the show in parts as a simple but complex character with a rich, inner life. I could feel for him as he is drawn deeper into the world inside Needleham and faces challenges he could never have envisioned when he took up his post as an advocate. Simpson is not afraid to delve into dark and disturbing issues related to attitudes towards psychiatric inmates, both past and present. Historical ideas are cleverly woven into the text, illuminating current thinking and broadening the context. Reality and fantasy, sanity and insanity, are skillfully called into question. The story becomes both incredibly sad and laugh-out-loud funny by twists and turns. The use of humour, often subtle and sardonic, works well. A sinister undertone adds to the atmospheric quality and increases as the story develops, leading to the immensely satisfying, though thought-provoking, denouement. Needleham is a story that will linger with me long after finishing reading it. - Jean Davidson
'Through the eyes of Luke, the new Patients' Advocate at Needleham, we are treated to a detailed filleting of the mental health system of the all too recent past, written with keen attention to the shabby, bleak aspects of the hospital itself, where 'coffee-coloured' drinks are swallowed down and 'carpeted areas of deserted arm chairs' abound. Along the way, Terry Simpson breathes new life into comedy staples. Dark, sharp and laugh out loud funny - I loved it.' - Mandy Sutter
'Kafka's The Castle meets One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest in Terry Simpson's debut novel, Needleham. Based on the writer's experience as patient adviser in a Yorkshire psychiatric hospital not unlike 'Needleham', one hopes this comic nightmare belongs in the past. Hope again! Needleham builds its world in unsettling and convincing detail.' - Peter Spafford, Chapel FM
"At last! I've been waiting a long time for a book like this. A witty, astute and poignant satire on the mental health system. Highly recommended". Professor Helen Spandler, Editor of the radical mental health magazine
Needleham by Terry Simpson is a multi-faceted novel, full of fascinating detail and emotional depth. The writing is lucid and imaginative throughout. I was captivated from the start with the powerful descriptions of setting, and the characters. Well-meaning Luke steals the show in parts as a simple but complex character with a rich, inner life. I could feel for him as he is drawn deeper into the world inside Needleham and faces challenges he could never have envisioned when he took up his post as an advocate. Simpson is not afraid to delve into dark and disturbing issues related to attitudes towards psychiatric inmates, both past and present. Historical ideas are cleverly woven into the text, illuminating current thinking and broadening the context. Reality and fantasy, sanity and insanity, are skillfully called into question. The story becomes both incredibly sad and laugh-out-loud funny by twists and turns. The use of humour, often subtle and sardonic, works well. A sinister undertone adds to the atmospheric quality and increases as the story develops, leading to the immensely satisfying, though thought-provoking, denouement. Needleham is a story that will linger with me long after finishing reading it. - Jean Davidson
'Through the eyes of Luke, the new Patients' Advocate at Needleham, we are treated to a detailed filleting of the mental health system of the all too recent past, written with keen attention to the shabby, bleak aspects of the hospital itself, where 'coffee-coloured' drinks are swallowed down and 'carpeted areas of deserted arm chairs' abound. Along the way, Terry Simpson breathes new life into comedy staples. Dark, sharp and laugh out loud funny - I loved it.' - Mandy Sutter
'Kafka's The Castle meets One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest in Terry Simpson's debut novel, Needleham. Based on the writer's experience as patient adviser in a Yorkshire psychiatric hospital not unlike 'Needleham', one hopes this comic nightmare belongs in the past. Hope again! Needleham builds its world in unsettling and convincing detail.' - Peter Spafford, Chapel FM
"At last! I've been waiting a long time for a book like this. A witty, astute and poignant satire on the mental health system. Highly recommended". Professor Helen Spandler, Editor of the radical mental health magazine
284 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2022
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May 23, 2023
Well-written satire does two things: it uses calculated exaggerations of the targeted aspect of reality to highlight its iniquities and stupidities, making the reader angry; and it permeates the text with wit and humour, making the reader laugh. The more detailed and intimate the author’s knowledge of the “targeted aspect of reality”, the sharper and more effective the satire.
By those criteria, Terry Simpson has written an excellent satirical novel. His “targeted aspect of reality” is the UK mental health system of the recent past.
Seen largely through the eyes of the hapless Luke Walker, the new Patients’ Advocate at Needlesham Mental Hospital (formerly the Pauper Lunatic Asylum) near the Yorkshire-Lancashire border, the story portrays the dangerous and even fatal abuse of ill-conceived therapies, the corruption endemic in money-orientated officialdom, and the calculated misinterpretation of well-meant government policies and directives, that has collectively plagued mental health care for generations. A firm drilling for shale oil in the hospital grounds, and two corrupt pharmaceutical companies, are hand in glove with the rapacious officials. The effect of the drilling is to produce cracks in the hospital’s walls and its imposing clock tower, an unsubtle but effective symbol of the crumbling of the mental health regime itself.
Needleham could have been an uncompromisingly harsh savaging of that regime, and in many respects it is, but it’s also laugh-out-loud funny. (I usually deplore hyphenated adjectives, but this novel really did make me laugh out loud, several times, even while I was grinding my teeth at the serial iniquities it reveals.) The comment on the front cover reads “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest meets Fawlty Towers”. That’s a pretty accurate one-line description.
Recommended.
By those criteria, Terry Simpson has written an excellent satirical novel. His “targeted aspect of reality” is the UK mental health system of the recent past.
Seen largely through the eyes of the hapless Luke Walker, the new Patients’ Advocate at Needlesham Mental Hospital (formerly the Pauper Lunatic Asylum) near the Yorkshire-Lancashire border, the story portrays the dangerous and even fatal abuse of ill-conceived therapies, the corruption endemic in money-orientated officialdom, and the calculated misinterpretation of well-meant government policies and directives, that has collectively plagued mental health care for generations. A firm drilling for shale oil in the hospital grounds, and two corrupt pharmaceutical companies, are hand in glove with the rapacious officials. The effect of the drilling is to produce cracks in the hospital’s walls and its imposing clock tower, an unsubtle but effective symbol of the crumbling of the mental health regime itself.
Needleham could have been an uncompromisingly harsh savaging of that regime, and in many respects it is, but it’s also laugh-out-loud funny. (I usually deplore hyphenated adjectives, but this novel really did make me laugh out loud, several times, even while I was grinding my teeth at the serial iniquities it reveals.) The comment on the front cover reads “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest meets Fawlty Towers”. That’s a pretty accurate one-line description.
Recommended.
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