Poppy Shakespeare [Hardcover]

The line between sanity and lunacy blurs in this ironic debut novel, a British import whose obvious inspiration is Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The narrator is "N," a female patient in a London mental institution, a self-described "dribbler" whose "mum was a dribbler and her mum as well 'cept she never seen her hardly, grown up in a home while they scooped out bits of her mother's brain, like a tater." N, a 13-year veteran of the hospital, is charged with taking the newest patient under her wing, the eponymous Poppy, who insists there's absolutely nothing wrong with her. But Poppy soon confronts the legal bureaucracy of the mental health system and learns that in this Alice-in-Wonderland, off-kilter world she will have to feign madness before can prove herself sane. Is Poppy deluded or is government bureaucracy the source of society's ills? And are we, the people, mad for giving government the power to label us as insane or sane in the first place? Readers must navigate a working class British dialect as well as specifics about the British mental health system. But those who hang on for this often painfully funny, difficult ride will gain insight about love, friendship and human nature that only a crazy person can properly articulate.
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A GLOBE & MAIL BEST BOOK OF 2006

“Allan casually yet boldly manages to bring the reader into N’s chaotic and feudal world. . . . Poppy Shakespeare is not only the careful telling of an unbelievable tale, but also a provoking examination of our health systems and the ethos of psychiatric facilities. . . . For anyone looking for a dynamic summer read with a troubling twist, Poppy Shakespeare is a worthy debut.”
–Winnipeg Free Press

A “stunning debut novel . . . so alive it practically sparks off the page. Oh, and then there’s the riotous humour. This is a laugh-out-loud kind of book. . . . In a long literary tradition of novels that chronicle “the Mental Patient,” Poppy Shakespeare stands out because its author has brought the madwoman down from the attic, or out of the shadows, and placed her at the centre of her own tale. . . . A rip-roaring good story.”
–Globe & Mail

“The superlatives are all shabby with overuse. Brilliant and incisive. Stunningly original. Heartbreaking. Something new will have to be minted for Poppy Shakespeare and her author, Clare Allan. . . . [It is] funny and ironic, but it is also a skewering portrait of the mental health system, and not just in Britain. . . . This is a debut novel, but already Allan is a literary force to contend with, one of those rare, oh-too-rare, writers who can make your mind and heart and guts flip in simultaneous somersaults. Don't give this a miss. It's the real thing.”
–Merilyn Simonds in The Gazette (Montreal)

“Catch-22 meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in a North London day hospital — Clare Allan’s Poppy Shakespeare is an electrifying debut, written after 10 years as a psychiatric patient, which bursts on to the page with a wholly original voice: surreal, raucous, infuriating and very funny.”
–Guardian (UK)

“Allan’s world isn’t quite right in the head, but is as real as a slap in the face. Her prose has an irresistible dark gumption reminiscent of Ali Smith. . . . As Allan . . . reminds us, you don’t have to be sane to see the funny side.”
–The Times (UK)

“Poppy Shakespeare is a distinctive and powerful debut, full of brave experiments that generate unexpectedly fierce emotional heat. In a literary scene whose established stars milk tragedies such as the Holocaust or 9/11 for precious little reason beyond their own artistic vanity, Allan has given us something indigestibly, potently true.”
—Michel Faber, author of The Crimson Petal and the White, in the Guardian (UK)

“Poppy Shakespeare has that rare quality: the feel of a book that needed to be written. . . . It is bitterly, brutally funny and extraordinarily moving. . . . The exuberant wit and colourful imagery, and the strangely endearing character of N. herself make Poppy Shakespeare such a pleasure to read.”
—The Telegraph (UK)

“Here is a serious novel which portrays the mentally ill with both raucous humour and with an empathy altogether lacking in sentimentality. The pitch of the narrative voice is perfect, and the characters, in all their bravado, pathos and absurdity, feel utterly true to life. It is a brave and original piece of work.”
–Patrick McGrath, author of Spider and Asylum