Playthings - Softcover

Alex Pheby

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1910296473 ISBN 13: 9781910296479

Publisher: Galley Beggar Press, 2015

Synopsis

Paul Schreber is a man who wants to go home - but can't. He is a man stymied by an illness he doesn't understand - and sometimes doesn't even know he has. He has to deal with past traumas, a disintegrating family, his own fantasies of persecution - as well as the very real forces marshalled against him. As Playthings delves deeper into Schreber's disturbed mind, the book also unearths the roots of the great ills in the 20th century, the psychological structure of fascism, the cancer of anti-Semitism, and the abuse of institutional power.

About this title

Review

"If Playthings is a neuronovel then it's arguably the best neuronovel ever written, particularly in its depiction of memory and the instability of personality. But it transcends any such category and is simply a superb novel tout court, Kafkaesque in its nightmarish fluency and a powerful exposition of Kant's celebrated view that 'the madman is a waking dreamer.'" - Literary Review

'Marvellously surprising and vivid, something new. Somehow inside the shape of an old story he traces fresh experiences as if for the first time. The detail is so sensuously precise. Impressed as I haven't been by a new novel for a while.' - Tessa Hadley in the New York Times

'A haunting new novel... [Pheby] doesn't merely relate Schreber's illness. He invites us to inhabit it - using prose that is both precise and beautiful. His disjointed prose conveys disordered thinking.' - New Scientist

'Throughout this compelling novel the space between reader and Schreber becomes a sombre reminder of how alone we all are.' --The Guardian

'Bold... immersive... compassionate... [In Playthings], we are made to see a logic to Schreber's psychosis and an illogicality and madness in the actions of the doctors and people around him... It is this humanizing aspect of the novel which is most valuable; we are reminded of the immense tragedy of his experiences of illness, experiences that are too often removed from the context of life.' - The TLS

'Alex Pheby s novel Playthings, about one of Freud's patients, takes us inside the experience of delusion, turning perception upside down and the results are darkly comical as well as tragic. - The Psychologist

'Nimble, absorbing, and provocative... Playthings is a wonderful exemplar of the relationship between psychoanalysis and fiction, stand[ing] as a dutiful reminder of why Joyce was compelled to compare Freud's talking cure with blackmail.' - The Small Contemporary Press

'Vertiginous shifts in perception are one of the joys of this shape-shifting novel, as it perpetually plays with the reader's scope of insight, first widening, then narrowing, until we are never quite sure where we sit. ... In Pheby's novel, it is also possible to read the shifting constellations of suppressed trauma, paranoia and persecution within Schreber's wavering consciousness as an oblique reflection of the mental framework of fascism, and of his own culture's struggle to define its self-identity, which would erupt in unimaginable violence half a century later. In Playthings Schreber's insanity becomes symptomatic of a more profound social malaise, and the novel offers a prism through which we can view the unfolding psychological landscape of the 20th century, as embodied in one of its emblematic precursors.' --Full-Stop

"In Playthings Schreber's insanity becomes symptomatic of a more profound social malaise, and the novel offers a prism through which we can view the unfolding psychological landscape of the 20th century, as embodied in one of its emblematic precursors." --Full Stop

"Playthings gets into the head, with tender attentiveness, of a man having a psychotic breakdown and takes up the story where the Schreber left off." --The Lancet

"An incredible work of fiction, all the more fascinating for being based on an actual case. The writing is taut, intense, the everyday world a phantom which Schreber tries so desperately to attain. His disturbance of mind is not so much explained as experienced. This story is powerful and moving; I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in the humanity behind mental illness." --Never Imitate

"Writing of the highest order." --Neil Griffiths

"Creating something out of this nothing is not an easy task but with this most unusual novel, the author has succeeded in doing just that." --Irish Times

About the Author

Alex Pheby was born in Essex and moved to Worcester in his early childhood. He currently lives in London, where he teaches at the University of Greenwich. His first novel, Grace, was published in 2009 by Two Ravens Press. His second novel, Playthings about the life of the Daniel Paul Schreber was published in 2015 in the UK by Galley Beggar Press. Widely acclaimed in media from the Guardian to the New York Times, and called "the best neuro-novel ever written" in the Literary Review, Playthings was shortlisted for the 2016 30,000 Wellcome Book Prize.

Edition details

• Publisher: Galley Beggar Press
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1910296473
• ISBN 13: 9781910296479
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 1