Description

Martin Williams

Published: 2026
Pages: 362
Key Themes: Mental Health, Depression, Bipolar, Manic Depression, love

Description

Book description

Claudette and Jon, is a sometimes light hearted, sometimes serious look at mental health provision in the early 1980’s. The two main protagonists are in love, they meet at Stigwood Mental Hospital. It is important to stress this is a work of fiction, even Jon who is telling the tale (it is in the first person), does not necessarily hold the same views as the author. If, having read the novel, one comes away thinking the action of the services was poor, then we may also find that true of Jon’s behavior. I am told the buzz word is auto-fiction, that is fiction with a nod to autobiography. Certainly, having suffered severely with my mental health, and having been hospitalised on many occasions, I think I am more than qualified to write this text. If you find at some point this work to be humorous, I shall be vindicated, the phrase rom.com. comes to mind. So relax, and let me take you into the world of Banes Mental Institution.

About the author

Martin Williams, me, was born on the 4th of December 1960. I was brought up in a well-to-do middle class family, my father was latterly an area manager for a tools firm. He sadly died very young, which had a lasting effect on myself and the rest of the family. While I have always felt I would be able to write, I didn’t start seriously until I was forty plus, at the turn of the millenium. My first novella was published by Chipmunka in 2008 and was called The Pearl Diver’s Saliva. I have made various inroads into higher education but have never completed a degree. Like Jon in “the world and his oyster” I have continued to paint and draw throughout my life, and did a part/time course at the Bristol School of Art. The “oyster” took two years to write, but I think you will find it worth the effort!