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The Telegraph praises the novel as bittersweet and wonderfully etched, noting that it is "an unsettling read but a perceptive and moving one". [9] Awards [ edit ] He also describes drawing a family portrait for his mother’s 50th birthday, the ‘secret notes and partial sketches’ he makes by way of preparation, the careful decisions about composition: he includes Simon by putting him in a photograph on the table beside his mother; he draws himself ‘with a sketchbook on my knees, drawing a picture. And if you look carefully, you can make out the top of the picture – and it’s the one we’re in.’ Just in case the analogy isn’t clear, he explains: ‘I think that’s sort of what I’m doing now too. I am writing myself into my own story, and I am telling it from within.’ Well, yes and no.
Nathan Filer, being a mental health nurse has quite obviously had a lot of experience within this field and from the writing you can see how much he has fully immersed himself in the characters and relationships. If you have any interest in mental health or specifically schizophrenia this is a must read!
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Matt Homes is a young man from Bristol with schizophrenia, writing out his life story which centres around the death of his Downs Syndrome brother when they were children. As Matt’s narrative progresses, we learn there’s more to his brother’s death than he initially lets on and that this is why he carries around feelings of guilt. The novel has earned high praise from comedian and former nurse Jo Brand, who said it was the best fiction about mental illness she had ever read. Having said that, Filer admitted a responsibility not to propagate myths around schizophrenia, a condition that is still "misunderstood and misrepresented", he said. "If you ask the man in the street you will still get lots of people taking about split personality, which is completely bogus … and violence which of course can be associated with it but more often isn't."
In 2014 the novel was awarded Specsavers Popular Fiction Book of the Year by Specsavers National Book Award [12] as well as the Writers' Guild of Great Britain award for Best First Novel. [13] The only thing I didn't like about this book is that it made me feel so sad but that's not enough to take a star off. I should say that I am not a nice person. Sometimes I try to be, but often I'm not. So when it was my turn to cover my eyes and count to a hundred -- I cheated. Nathan Filer’s debut stunned me and left me speechless. It’s been a long time since I read something so beautifully written. The novel was praised by The Guardian as "a gripping and exhilarating read", the narrator's voice being "dazzlingly rendered". [5] British Journal of Psychiatry noted that readers who are psychiatrists hoping to find themselves portrayed within the work would be disappointed, as they are "mentioned less than a handful of times throughout". However, they praise Filer's "very talented storytelling" and "fine description of psychiatry". [8]
Osim toga, roman je prožet i odličnim humorom (poprilično crnim), čak i pored toga što se bavi ozbiljnim problemima - opakom bolešću uma, detetom sa daunovim sindromom,... National Book Awards 2014 - Overall winner announced". The Reading Agency. 2014 . Retrieved 15 April 2019. Nathan Filer wins Costa Book of the Year with debut novel". BBC News. 28 January 2014 . Retrieved 15 April 2019. When Matt is discharged from hospital for the first time after his diagnosis, the consultant psychiatrist asks him if Simon is in the room with them. In one sense, of course he is, he’s always there, in the thoughts and memories of his family and in the silences among them. There’s nothing especially mad about Matt’s belief in the recycling of his dead brother’s atoms as a form of material, secular afterlife. Nothing especially mad, either, about his seeing Simon’s face where it isn’t, in other people, in the moon. Grief, loneliness, exhaustion and psychotropic drugs can make anyone see things that aren’t really there. But Matt’s belief goes further. He doesn’t think Simon is present ‘in one sense’: he knows he is as present to him as he was when he was alive. He is under the bed, talking to him, poking his head out, smiling. ‘He beamed with pride, then pounced, throwing his arms around me. I let myself fall under his weight. It felt so good to hold him, I could hardly breathe.’ These scenes are a small part of the novel, though. Matthew is a convincing and painfully haunted character.
Another common cause of falls, particularly among older men, is falling from a ladder while carrying out home maintenance work. Bosman, Julie (10 February 2014). "After Prize, Novel Gets 2nd Chance in the U.S." The New York Times . Retrieved 15 April 2019.a b Jones, Thomas (20 February 2014). "This is not a ghost story". London Review of Books. 36 (4): 33. Moreover, the experience that Nathan Filer has gained as a mental health nurse is apparent through his irreverent treatment of the subject matter. He does not idealise the staff or the patients, both of them have good days and bad days and this was remarkably refreshing. I could not deny that I did not gain something from the text, but it was also pleasant to find that an author did not shove his or her ideology down my throat to the extent that the book merely appeared distasteful. Even better was that Filer managed to inject sharp bursts of humour which cut through what could otherwise be an oppressive narrative to entertain and make the work somehow more real. If the tap choked and spluttered before the water came, he was saying I’m lonely. When I opened a bottle of Dr Pepper and the caramel bubbles fizzed over the rim, he was asking me to come out and play. He could speak through an itch, the certainty of a sneeze, the after-taste of tablets, or the way sugar fell from a spoon. a b c "UWE awards Honorary Degree to Nathan Filer". University of the West of England. 23 July 2015 . Retrieved 12 August 2015. If you're living with or caring for an elderly person, read what to do after an incident. What causes a fall?
Nathan Filer's first book of non-fiction, The Heartland: Finding and Losing Schizophrenia, was published by Faber and Faber in 2019. It was a Sunday Times Book of the Year [21] and the charity, Rethink Mental Illness, named it as one of their Mental Health Books of the Decade. [22] It was also longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize. [23] Patients are referred to as "Service Users" and it's a place in which "the manics talk – but they talk crap" and where the over-riding sensation is of mind-numbing tedium. "There is literally nothing to do," says Matthew, who calls his own repetitive existence "a Cut & Paste kind of life". Falls are a common, but often overlooked, cause of injury. Around 1 in 3 adults over 65 and half of people over 80 will have at least one fall a year. He holds a master's degree and PhD from Bath Spa University, where he is a Reader in Creative Writing. [26] Books [ edit ]A compelling story of grief, madness and loss. Filer has an ear for the dark comedy of life, and Matthew is a charismatic lead character who draws you in even as his world falls apart’ It’s an easy to follow narrative but a very dull one. Filer uses his own experience as a mental health nurse to inform the novel and the passages set in the treatment centre were convincing. If there’s one element that stays with you, it’s the clear picture of mental health treatment in England today, and how soul-draining it is for patients. In the present, Matt is being treated at the Hope Road Day Centre mental hospital. He was committed there by his parents, Richard and Susan, after his grandmother found him attempting to make a giant ant farm in his flat, which a hallucination of Simon told him to do. Matt finds his experience at the ward repetitive, and often complains about the rigid schedule. One of Matt's therapists asks him to perform a genogram – which eventually makes him remember what happened to Simon by writing about the night he died. It is revealed that Simon's death was the result of a harmless prank gone wrong, where Simon accidentally fell off of a short cliff. But older women are most at risk because osteoporosis is often associated with the hormonal changes that occur during the menopause. Preventing a fall
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