Playthings

by Alex Pheby

Overview

A hallucinatory, fragmentary, and tragic fictional telling of one of the most fa- mous psychotherapy cases in history, A lex Pheby’s Playthings offers a visceral and darkly comic portrait of paranoid schizophrenia. Based on the true story of nineteenth-century German judge Daniel Paul Schreber, Playthings artfully shows the disorienting human tragedy of Schreber’s psychosis, in vertiginous prose that blurs the lines between madness and sanity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781910296646
Publisher:	Galley Beggar Press
Publication date:	11/05/2015
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	241
File size:	277 KB

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.

Editorial Reviews

…[a] skillfully rich novel. A close third-person voice situates Playthings in an eerie place between a lived account of insanity and a careful observation of a mind's unraveling…In the fiction of Schreber's madness, every person is, as he puts it, a "plaything of the Lower God." In the reality that Schreber lived, the mentally ill were playthings of the "well," children were playthings of adults, and minorities were playthings of the state. It is this economy of cruelty…that is the seed of Schreber's suffering. Pheby illustrates this point with compassion and subtlety in Playthings; the book's hybrid position between the historical and the fictional makes it all the more potent.

The New York Times Book Review - Catherine Lacey

06/04/2018
This intricate and intelligent novel by Pheby (Grace) is based on the true story of a respected 19th-century German judge, Daniel Paul Schreber. In 1903, he wrote about his experience with the midlife onset of a delusional mental disorder and treatment in an asylum in Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, which was later interpreted by Freud. Pheby opens the novel as Schreber’s wife suffers a stroke, precipitating his third major psychotic episode. Readers learn that Schreber is not always convinced that other people are real: they are “playthings” of various gods, and stop existing when they are not being witnessed. Through Schreber’s interactions with orderlies, doctors, family members, and other asylum inmates (who might or might not be real), readers learn about his difficult childhood, in particular his strict, demanding father. Pheby uses a close third-person perspective to zoom into Schreber’s mind during his periods of lucidity, or semi-lucidity. He’s keen to return home in time for Christmas, and seemingly held more or less against his will. Gradually, readers realize that he has been ill for some years and does not even always recognize his own family. The effort to discern what is real effectively transports readers into Schreber’s experience and tragedy. (June)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Playthings

“[A] skillfully rich novel . . . A close third-person voice situates Playthings in an eerie place between a lived account of insanity and a careful observation of a mind’s unraveling . . . [A]gile and wily.” —New York Times Book 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

“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 Times Literary Supplement

“Intricate and intelligent...effectively transports readers into Schreber's experience and tragedy.” —Publisher's Weekly

“A highly detailed, emotional plunge into the mind of a disturbed man... An intense, immersive reading experience that provides real insight into those afflicted with severe mental illness.” —Kirkus

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

“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

“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

“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

From the Publisher

2018-04-03
A highly detailed, emotional plunge into the mind of a disturbed man.Englishman Pheby's (Grace, 2009) unique second novel draws on a famous psychiatric case from the 19th century for its main character, Daniel Paul Schreber, a judge of the High Court of Saxony. In 1903, Schreber wrote Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, which became a subject of interest to other novelists as well as Sigmund Freud. Pheby's novel picks up Schreber's story later, when he suffers a third bout of mental illness. There are echoes of Nikolai Gogol's "Diary of a Madman" and Franz Kafka's nightmarish writings. Writing in the third person in a semi-stream of consciousness manner, Pheby invites us to enter deep into Schreber's mind as he experiences frustrations, delusions, and fantasies. The novel opens with Schreber frantically searching his house for his wife, Sabine. He finds her on the floor; she's had a seizure: "What was this? This panting thing? Moaning...grinning mannequin...his wife's form, but without her soul." He leaves the house and wanders around, encountering various people on the streets. His daughter, Fridoline, tries to get him to come back; he refuses. He then finds himself in a hospital under the care of Müller, an orderly, and Dr. Rössler, who has read Schreber's memoir. Pheby meticulously chronicles Schreber's treatment and his recurring nightmares and tortuous memories of his strict father, who probably mistreated his children. Schreber ruminates on religion—was he a mere "plaything of the Lower God?" A mysterious Jewish gentleman, who may or may not be real, haunts him. Schreber is the book's sole focus, always front and center, but that center is askew.An intense, immersive reading experience that provides real insight into those afflicted with severe mental illness.

Kirkus Reviews