anorexia
Backstory
It’s probably fair to say that Patricia Cornwell is generally adjudged the undisputed mother and queen of forensic thriller writing.
It was her first novel, Postmortem, that kick-started this genre and spawned a fascination with the world of the dead. BBC series like Silent Witness, and Waking the Dead, which explore unexplained deaths, are aired at prime time. Just this week, Channel 5 has started showing a brand new 3-part documentary, Cause of Death, taking viewers inside a coroner‘s office as he and his team investigate unexplained deaths.
But way back in the 1980s, it was not instant hits all round. Initially Cornwell had to endure the usual run of rejections, and even when Postmortem was published, it took time before it was duly acclaimed. When she slipped out in her lunch break from the mortuary where she worked for her very first book signing, precisely no copies of the book were sold, and she fielded just one question: an elderly lady asking where she could find the cookbooks!
Since then, of course, she has achieved phenomenal success, won an impressive raft of literary prizes, and sold over 120 million books. Probably her most famous character is Chief Medical Officer Dr Kay Scarpetta, and next week her 26th book in the series comes out. 26!! But it’s Scarpetta’s backstory, and that of her niece Lucy, and policeman colleague Pete Marino, that help to drive the novels – a massive achievement in itself to sustain the suspense and time-lines across so many years, a backdrop to countless horrific crimes and painstaking investigations, each a compelling read in its own right.
Another powerful characteristic of her books which I am in awe of is the precision – whether it’s the minute records of exactly which bones were fractured in a frenzied attack, or the precise level of decomposition of a body, or the battery of tests needed to establish where a body has been, the scene is described in meticulous detail. She lists as her interests:
Forensics | Forensic Technologies | Ballistics | Weapons | Explosives | Pathology & Autopsies | Crime | Historical and Unsolved Criminal Cases | Jack The Ripper | Helicopter Piloting | Scuba Diving | Archaeological Excavation Experience |
It shows! And she’s famous for working tirelessly to stay up to speed as methods of detection and analysis evolve.
But until this week I was unaware of her own harrowing personal story. Interviews with her to mark the publication of Livid on 25th October, have revealed a grim start in life. She was just five years old when her father walked out on Christmas Day. Shortly afterwards she was molested by a local patrolman, and required to testify in court before a grand jury. Her mother suffered from psychotic depression and spent large swathes of her daughter’s early life in hospital, meaning Patricia was either responsible for caring for her at home or in foster care herself. Her foster mother verbally abused her, bullied and force-fed her (leading to subsequent anorexia). She also left Patricia’s beloved dog locked in the basement to die of neglect. The grown up Cornwell is still riddled with deep-down anxieties about families and responsibilities.
By her own admission, in Scarpetta she has created a character who would have rescued her from all this torment – someone who is unflagging in the pursuit of justice for the murder victims who end up on her autopsy table. But it doesn’t require a PhD in psychology to see the origins of her deep empathy with inner turmoil and the effects of suppressed emotion which are so evident in her fiction. She has used her own personal tragedy and her extraordinary literary talent to make sense of the world. In her own words: I think your pain becomes your poetry, your gift. What a gift!
Tragic deaths
It’s hard for healthy busy contented people to understand the mind of a youngster who will go to any lengths to be extremely thin; almost impossible to comprehend the anguish of their parents, powerless to halt the deadly progress. But that’s what I’ve been trying to do for my latest novel, so perhaps it’s not surprising that news of youngsters who die as a result of this craving hits me foursquare.
Serious eating disorders have a profound and devastating effect on both patient and family, and it’s well known that the death rate among young people with anorexia is frighteningly high. So exploitation of such vulnerable people seems particularly heinous.
This week saw the inquest into the death of 21-year-old Eloise Parry who, after years of bulimia, sent away for diet pills online to hasten the slimming process by speeding up her metabolism. They contained an industrial chemical, DNP (dinitrophenol) a dangerous toxic substance which is commonly used in explosives and dyes and pesticides. Online marketing describes it innocuously as ‘fat-burning’; experts agree it is not fit for human consumption.
So what persuades an intelligent person to acquire this unlicensed ‘medication’ in the first place, and what drives them to even exceed the recommended dose? Real desperation, distorted thinking, and perhaps too a level of naivety about the dangers of unlicensed drugs acquired online from companies with no scruples as to legality, purity, cleanliness or even authenticity.
Things certainly went catastrophically wrong for Eloise when she took 4 pills at 4am in the morning of April 12, (2 represents a fatal dose) and a further 4 when she woke up later that same morning. Shortly afterwards she drove herself to hospital, aware that she was in big trouble. She even sent a text message to one of her college lecturers at 11.31 saying she was afraid she was going to die, apologising for her stupidity. Her prediction sadly came true at 3.25 that same afternoon. Eloise is the sixth Briton to die in this horrible way – the body’s metabolism speeds up so violently that they burn up inside; nothing can be done to reverse it. What an appalling tragedy.
Eloise’s mother has appealed to others not to buy anything containing DNP. The coroner says he will write to the Government to recommend such products are not accessible. The Department of Health put out an urgent warning to the public. Interpol has issued a global warning. And yet there is clear evidence that some companies are still fraudulently importing this deadly substance under various guises heedless of the consequences.
Bad enough when the mental state of the young person drives them to starve themselves slowly. To have their susceptibility and fragility exploited so shamelessly is nothing short of evil.
Inside of Me: a sneak preview
It occurred to me during the week that many of you are people who’ve read some or all of my novels to date. I should therefore do you the courtesy of giving you a priority glimpse into the latest offering, Inside of Me, currently being critiqued by my first raft of advisors.
For your exclusive scrutiny (!) then, an outline of the theme and the plot – never before seen!
The theme: Body image. Several of the characters in Inside of Me struggle to find their own ways of dealing with or escaping from problems related to their perceptions of themselves, sometimes with devastating consequences for their families and friends. Now, I might as well come clean and tell you that I personally have long-standing issues with this topic, so it’s been quite a troubling experience immersing myself in its various manifestations. What’s more, my recent illness (which incapacitated me for six months) added yet another dimension when I realised how much of my own perceived identity is wrapped up in what I do and what I achieve – for part of this time NOTHING!
The plot: Two teenage girls vanish. One is found dead, the other is still missing without trace. Then a Scottish nurse, Victor Grayson, 36, vanishes leaving behind a neat pile of his clothes on the beach, a wife and an 8 year old daughter. The police presume he took his own life; his wife, Tonya, secretly fears he may have been involved in the disappearance of the teenagers; his daughter, India, hangs on ferociously to her picture of her dad as her best friend through the haze of faulty memories and half truths.
Roll forward seven years, and India, now 15, thinks she hears his voice 500 miles away, on King’s Cross station. At the same time a third teenager vanishes. Events – both in the Grayson family and the police department – develop new momentum. India has anorexia and her mother believes she’s hallucinating from hunger. But India’s best friend takes up the case, and when the third missing teenager is seen at the cinema with an unknown person the race is on to find her before anything bad happens to her.
Exactly what is the connection between the missing schoolgirls, a Scottish nurse, a London florist, and two youngsters with eating disorders?
Concentration chez moi is on the next stages of the publishing process but this lovely weather is tempting me out and about as well. How fabulous Scotland is – hard to believe crimes can be committed amidst such beauty; and individuals be swallowed up by their own distorted perceptions.
Occupational hazard
Heebie jeebie! Talk about illusions shattered …
After a five-month enforced ‘sabbatical’ I’ve been yearning for my old life. Odd, isn’t it, how once you have time for recreational pursuits they lose some of their appeal? Anyway, recently I decided to try to winkle my way back into the world of my next novel. After all, I want to be on the starting blocks ready for a quick get away once my heart is fixed; best to get into the zone at least, and start limbering up, I thought.
Top of my to-do pile is a book by leading authority in anorexia, psychotherapist Steven Levenkron. He has an excellent reputation in the USA so I’d been saving him for a special moment in the process. Now might be the right time. I’d be in safe hands. As Levenkron says himself, Anatomy of Anorexia aims to ‘demystify this life-ruining disease.’ Exactly what I need. It should help me inch myself back into the thinking of a young girl enmeshed in this dangerous practice, and home in on any errors in my understanding so far.
Off I went.
Well, this author is indeed a hands-on expert in the subject … tick. He writes well … tick. He holds the attention easily … tick. He intersperses authentic stories of anorexics with credible advice … tick. He explains in understandable language the origins, psychology, pathology, manifestations and management of the illness … tick. So well does he do so in fact that I found myself engrossed … overly identifying … and slowly drowning in all the horror of fractured relationships and distorted thinking and devious tactics and compulsions and young lives spiraling into destruction; even all the worries that burden the therapists. Seeing in stark relief all my own hang ups and obsessions. Yep, I was back in that tortured place I found myself reduced to after reading 30 novels on the subject.
Conclusion: this subject is bad for my personal health!
Time to get out and smell the crocuses!
Novel number 9?
Several people have independently asked me this week where I’m at with novel number 9. Well, the short answer is: I’m still researching the topic – part time at that, because I mustn’t be deflected too far from the necessary task of promoting Over my Dead Body at the moment.
Truth is, most of this background work isn’t exciting enough to anyone else to report it. Goodness, some of it is even tedious for me, as I confessed last November! However, I like to focus on the positive and this week I discovered another gem that has given me new impetus.
Remember this shelf of novels I had to plough through? Well, one of them: Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson, has restored my faith in authors who write about eating disorders.
The storyline is pretty much the same as all the others. Lia is 18. She’s anorexic. She’s watched her parents split up. She has an ambivalent relationship with her stepmother. She constantly fights the urge to eat. She has a grossly distorted body image. Yawn, yawn. All horribly familiar.
But in Lia’s case there’s an added dimension: she’s consumed by guilt. Not because she’s stick thin and disobeying all the injunctions of her psychiatrist – no. Rather because, before she died, her ex-best friend and fellow anorexic, Cassie, tried 33 times to speak to her, increasing desperation screaming through the messages she left. But Lia refused to answer. And now Cassie has been found dead in a sleazy motel room. Alone.
So why did this book appeal? Lia’s teenage voice is authentic and engaging without the all-too-common patronising undertones. Her mental troubles are captured sensitively. She’s a haunted soul, and Anderson has managed to convey the devastating effect of such a situation without moralising or lecturing. All making us want to know why Lia ignored the pleas, how Cassie died, whether Lia will survive the trauma.
Also the writing is in a different league.
‘She’s still learning how to pick her way through the bombed-out countryside that lies between her stepmess and the mythological Wife Number One.’
‘I go up two flights and tiptoe across the polished floor of her bedroom, sloooooowly turn the doorknob, and open her bathroom door a crack. A breath of steam trickles out, filled with the sobs of a grown woman breaking into girl-sized pieces. I close the door.’
Furthermore, the author employs some simple but effective techniques which appealed to me. Scratching out the narrator’s thoughts shrieks at us/lets us know what the ‘nasty voices‘ in her head are telling her /Lia really thinks, or would say if she dared. Repetition of the haunting reality of Cassie’s death keeps Lia’s preoccupation centre stage.
… she called.
thirty three times.
you didn’t answer.
body found in motel room, alone.
you killed her.
I was beginning to lose the will to live/wonder if I’d made the right choice of subject for the next book. Wintergirls has made me believe in the possibility again. Onwards and upwards!
Girl Under Pressure
Priority at the moment has to be the promotion of Over my Dead Body, so research on the next book has been relegated to a back seat. Sad but true. However, that doesn’t stop the ideas simmering.
Remember this row of books about anorexia? Well, so far I’ve read only 7, but already I’ve come to a definite decision: weight loss mustn’t drive my story. Frankly I’m bored out of my skull with it already! Admittedly most of the books have been teen fiction and not really my kind of reading in the first place, but they’ve served a useful function in that they’ve shown me clearly what to rule out of my own writing.
It was Girl under Pressure, an ebook by Michele Corriveau, that clinched it. The only one to date with anything approaching a gripping storyline, which has held my interest, and had no sense of being a cautionary tale. It’s also sufficiently whacky to make me admire the author’s courage in tackling such disturbing themes.
The story begins with the abduction and death of a little girl, Jessie. Not an easy topic but it came as a breath of fresh air after the previous six books, and I was struck by the literary possibilities it offered. The horror for the two main families of discovering Jessie has been snatched offers a potentially powerful hook to create tension and emotional engagement from the outset. I say ‘potentially’ because sadly the author doesn’t fully capitalise on her good idea. The incident is dealt with too quickly and too coldly – a source of considerable frustration for me as a reader; but at least I could appreciate what might have been.
NB. If you’re considering reading this book, I should warn you the rest of this post contains spoilers.
As a child, the main protagonist, Maggie, uses food to bargain with God to stop bad things happening to those she loves – it’s called magical thinking. But then food becomes an obsession. As the years go on, her OCD escalates and she progresses to stealing in an effort to stop the pressure mounting inside her. She can’t think straight until she’s stopped the voices that demand she carries out this act. Once she’s done it, she can calmly go on living her life. Stealing then gives way to a compulsion to seek out strangers for sex.
She gets beaten up and raped more than once by the men she goes with and the reader starts to get a real sense of the power of the OCD that has her in its grip. These horrific experiences aren’t enough to stop her continuing to put herself at risk. Maggie’s husband, Alex, becomes increasingly anxious and bewildered by her behaviour; she either conjures up improbable stories, or simply refuses to talk about what’s happened. Then one day, things come to a head. She meets a man on a park bench and accompanies him to his home for sex. He thinks she’s a child because she is so tiny and looks immature, and when he’s unable to dominate her as he wants/needs, he becomes extremely violent. When she sees his face on TV as a man wanted for questioning in relation to the abduction of little Jessie, the only daughter of her friends, Maggie is appalled. He can’t be guilty; at the time in question he was with her.
In spite of her dread of exposing her own sordid behaviour, and the effect of such a revelation on her beloved husband, Maggie’s conscience drives her to go to the police to clear this man’s name. Alex is utterly appalled when he learns the truth. He leaves her, taking the children with him. But in fact her alibi is false because one of her children had changed the clock in the car. This man hadn’t been with her at the critical time. He had killed Jessie just before he picked up Maggie in the park. So she’d risked and lost everything for a murderer and paedophile.
I found the plotting intriguing and the storyline very different, but it was spoiled for me by the litter of typographical errors and the muddled point of view in places. I wanted to give it a good edit and send it out into the world spruced up.
But, thanks to Corriveau, I’ve been able to turn a negative into a positive and learn a valuable lesson about what not to do in my own writing.
A few statistics to conjure with
Out and about with the granddaughters this week, we’ve learned a lot of fascinating statistics about owls, debunking a fair few urban myths along the way. (Did you know that The Scottish Owl Centre houses one of the largest collection of owls in the world? Yep – fact not fantasy. Everything from the huge Siberian Eagle Owl to the dinkiest Scops Owl – 40 species, 100 birds.) Anyway, contrary to popular conception, owls are not wise, which makes them a fitting symbol for what I want to say in this blog.Last week the following email appeared in my Inbox: ‘On behalf of the Goodreads team, I want to say thank you. You’re in the top 1% of reviewers on Goodreads! Your many thoughtful book reviews help make us a vibrant place for book lovers.’
Wow! Goodreads is ‘the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations!’ – by it’s own description anyway, so I indulged in a little warm glow. Top 1%, huh? Not to be sniffed at. But then I discovered that they’ve just announced that they ‘now have 20 million members, up from 10 million members just eleven months ago.‘
OK, do the maths, and I’m one of 200,000 top reviewers. Hmmm. Not that impressive, eh? Especially not since reading is part of my job. But I find their site really useful for keeping tabs on what I’ve read, when, and what I thought of each book. So thanks, Goodreads, for a very useful facility.
You might remember I was toying with two topics for my next book: anorexia or abortion. Well, I decided the next step might be to see how many other novelists have written in this area – suss out the competition. Assess where the biggest gap is.
Type ‘novels including anorexia‘ into Google and up come 52 titles through just Goodreads and Amazon. With a footnote saying ‘218 best eating disorder books’ which presumably means non-fiction. Do the same thing for abortion, and 27 come up. Hmm. Not what I was expecting. Of course, it could all be to do with shelving, the blurb available, keywords, that kind of thing. I’m sure more will surface once I start reading. And I quickly discovered that a large proportion of the eating disorder ones are teen fiction.
By reading synopses and reviews of them all, I’ve whittled it down to a dozen must-reads on abortion and probably 29 on anorexia. Looks like I’m in for the long haul, anyway. Watch out for an onslaught of reviews, Goodreads!