Book Club: Reading/Review The Shock of the Fall

[midnightcatprowl]

This is the reading/review thread for:

The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer

Gone back this time to combining the reading and review thread so please be aware that posts might contain spoilers. Do you think this it is a good idea to have a combined reading/review thread or not?

[MistyMeena]

Having just finished War and Peace (have to get that into every conversation today ) I now have The Shock of the Fall in my hands and am about to dip in.

I think combined reading/review threads are a good idea although it would be helpful if people start their posts with some indication of the stage they are at with the book (chapter or page number or finished/review).

[midnightcatprowl]

I think combined reading/review threads are a good idea although it would be helpful if people start their posts with some indication of the stage they are at with the book (chapter or page number or finished/review).

I've finished it. In fact I'd finished it within a couple of days of it being chosen as one of our reads. I sat down just to take a look at it, found it a real page turner and ended up both suspending reading of anything else (I'm rarely only reading one book) and passing on a lot of domestic tasks until I'd finished it! Not posting my review yet just indicating that some people may find it a very compelling read.

[MistyMeena]

Finished

In the heat of the weekend I sped through this book. I found it a real page turner and the sort of book that I like for when the children are around and I might have to put it down at any minute. I just kept picking it up again.

I think I’ll bite the bullet and post a few thoughts I had about it. Anyone with more insight into schizophrenia might be able to pull more out of the book and it would be good to hear such thoughts.

It is very clear from the outset that Matthew, the narrator, is keeping the events surrounding his brother Simon’s death for later. That is the point of the book: that Matthew has mental health issues and that Simon’s death was a pivotal moment for him. I did think that waiting to find out what happened almost overshadowed all that Matthew went through with his schizophrenic episodes.

The death was obviously a major event for the whole family. Matthew must have been prone to schizophrenia but the book does set up a course that leads to its expression (stress, genetics, drug abuse).

For me it raised issues about how children should be allowed to grieve and how they should be included in life events. This particularly comes out towards the end when Matthew hears how Annabelle’s family reacted to Simon’s death. Matt is stuck looking inwards and had not been given the time to share reminiscences. Did Matt tell the truth about Simon’s death to the police or was there something in that which made him not only shoulder the blame but have it heaped onto him by his parents?

I had questions about Matthew’s mother throughout. Matthew calls her “mad” on several occasions and my reading of the situation was that their frequent visits to the GP were more her crying for help herself than for him. But I could be wrong?

I liked the ending although it seemed a neat finale and I wonder if it down played that this was not a cure for Matt? He does say his mental health will remain an issue in the future but it would be easy to gloss over that. He had a lot to offer in terms of being a carer and it made me think how people with mental health problems might be treated while trying to work in these roles. As Matthew says “I’m a mental patient, not an idiot.”

MM

[midnightcatprowl]

I've read this book twice now. First time as a page turner which I found it difficult to put down, second time because I found when I sat down to write a review that I'd already forgotten a lot of it. Oddly enough the fact that quite a lot of it was rather forgettable fits, I think, with the topic rather than being a criticism of the writing.

Anyone with more insight into schizophrenia might be able to pull more out of the book and it would be good to hear such thoughts.

I'm a qualified Educational Psychologist and worked for over 20 years in that role before moving on to running my own business in an entirely different sector. The role of Ed Psychs is more to do with learning problems, disabilities, behaviour management, and so on, as, technically speaking at least, children with mental health problems should be dealt with by the health service. Whether such help is actually available or how long it takes to become available or if the parents or caretakers accept the need for such help is an entirely different question. So on a day to day basis you may well be dealing with children at that stage regarded by parents and teachers as behaviour problems or awkward or weird but who in fact are on the road to a mental illness. Also, and perhaps even more difficult, you are dealing with children who are living with parents who are mentally ill including schizophrenia and the effects for a child can be devastating. I still remember the son of a single parent who was a 'treated in the community' schizophrenic and that parent met (at a medically run support group) and married a man who was also a 'treated in the community' schizophrenic. Such things actually happen quite frequently, sometimes they work out okay, sometimes the results are disastrous! So yes, I do have a bit of experience of this and other mental illnesses. N.B. Remember that the 'needy' Matthew who was expected to be more responsible than his older brother forms a particular friendship at school with the 'needy' Jacob who is stuck in the role of his mother's caretaker.

I thought the author did a very good job of presenting the inner experience of one person dealing with life through the lens of a mental illness and what happens or may happen to such a person as a result. Also, along the way, the issue of a child in a family where another child is already labelled as 'the problem' and the child is expected to be the responsible one even though younger. So Simon has 'the problem' because he has Down's Syndrome (though in fact Simon is getting on well on his own developmental course and is probably, in his own way, more socially competent than Matthew) while Matthew's needs/early signs of something wrong are over-shadowed by family focus on a different issue and possibly by the fact that his mother is herself 'vulnerable'.

Matthew must have been prone to schizophrenia but the book does set up a course that leads to its expression (stress, genetics, drug abuse).

I thought the author also did an extremely good job of portraying how 'loving' parents - and Matthew never doubts that either of his parents or his sibling or his grandmother genuinely love him - can nevertheless fail to treat a child rationally or realise and provide the support they need or even actually act in ways which are destructive of their child's development and indeed of their sanity. Repeated comments along such lines as 'Oh Matthew what are we going to do with you' may be regarded as both affectionate and even amusing by those saying them but are rarely experienced that way by the person to whom such comments are directed. Then there is the disaster after Simon's death of ever allowing Matthew to be off school in the first place (children, even children who dislike school, actually do better emotionally after a disaster if they are returned immediately to an accustomed routine among others of their own age and with adults, who no matter how sorry they may be about the disaster, are not personally emotionally involved in it i.e. back with adults who are not dazed by sorrow, guilt, suspicion, whatever. Once he is off school there is the further disaster of allowing the drift into home schooling particularly bearing in mind that Matthew's mother had shown no previous inclination towards home schooling him.

I had questions about Matthew’s mother throughout. Matthew calls her “mad” on several occasions and my reading of the situation was that their frequent visits to the GP were more her crying for help herself than for him. But I could be wrong?

No, I think it is clear that you are entirely right. Matthew identifies his mother as 'mad' and after all this is a subject into which he has some insight! The home schooling and the GP visits meet the bereaved mother's needs rather than her child's. Then there is the bizarre but apparently deliberate behaviour of taking him past the school playground at a time when his ex-schoolmates are there to watch. But remember also that the rest of the family are colluding in this behaviour, Matthew's Dad and his grandmother and the rest of the extended family are colluding with this situation by doing nothing about it. Bereaved themselves they are not helping Matthew's mother either of course. The GP identifies the problem lies with the mother rather than the child but can only provide pills or maybe does not realise the wider issues. Whether Matthew's mother has always been 'vulnerable' or whether she is ill now only because of the bereavement and the stress of maybe wondering about what exactly Matthew did isn't clear, but it is actually 'real life' that this isn't clear, as so often these things are not clear.

For me it raised issues about how children should be allowed to grieve and how they should be included in life events. This particularly comes out towards the end when Matthew hears how Annabelle’s family reacted to Simon’s death. Matt is stuck looking inwards and had not been given the time to share reminiscences.

Yes and it is a common problem that when a family is bereaved the needs of the children are overlooked or the needs of the children are assumed to be different from what they really are.

The third thing I thought was very real about this book was the endless descriptions of nothing much happening (which was why I quickly forgot a lot of it and when I went back realised there was nothing much to remember because a lot of the action is about nothing much happening). Matthew as is often the case with mental illness leads a very limited and boring life. Both in and out of hospital nothing much happens most of the time and what little does happen is destructive as when Matthew becomes obsessed with the building of his model or the drug taking with Jacob. Mental illness is in the end a destruction of talent and opportunity and can be a condemnation to a life of nothing much.

I wonder if it down played that this was not a cure for Matt? He does say his mental health will remain an issue in the future but it would be easy to gloss over that.

Definitely but on the other hand I think that knowing that you really are ill (and it is not just other people saying that you are) and taking charge in some way of your own fate - as with Matthew deciding for himself that he will hold the 'party' and not asking the rest of the family if they want to remember Simon in this way but just getting on with it - is an important step in trying to 'manage' and live with your own illness and trying to find a way forward despite the fact that you have an illness with no cure.

What didn't I like about the book? Well I found the whole business of the burial of the doll and Matthew later digging it up and using it to tease/frighten Simon somehow very contrived and laboured and awkward and not as 'real' as the rest of the book. I almost felt that the author must have been reading a Stephen King book over the weekend before writing that bit and so got pulled somewhat away from his normal writing style. Highly personal reaction perhaps so I'd be interested to know how other people felt about it.