Books

Review by Francis Shepard

The viewpoint is that of the outsider. The perception of Lennox Cameron, is very much our perspective of the 21st century, where so much has been clarified by research. Cameron, the character who tells much of the story, is a recently-qualified doctor, brought up in South Australia though with Scottish antecedents. Arriving in Edinburgh to take up a position of Inspector, or Commissioner, for Lunatic Asylums, he comes fresh to the dismal scenes of mentally-ill people’s mistreatment in mid-nineteenth-century Scotland.

What he finds, based on Government records meticulously kept, is horrific and painful to read. As said, we experience it all through the eyes – and feelings – of Cameron himself. The novel makes us aware of the historic fear of mental illness of society’s response to it – which is to ‘other’ the sufferer. Hence the paucity of provision for the mentally-ill, and the frequent brutality. The implicit message is: we as a society are not so different today. The mental health crisis afflicting many in today’s United Kingdom is met largely with indifference. There are those now ready to profit financially from the condition – take the behaviour of the pharmaceutical giants. The altruism of Lennox Cameron has a counterpart in the mercenary Peter Baird, doctor.

As a psychologist Cameron is regarded with suspicion by the medical profession and by the relations with whom he lodges, to the extent that, towards the end of the novel, he questions his own sanity. The author places the complacent middle classes under his scrutiny.

The novel’s subject is inhumanity and I must say I had to skip some of the (entirely factual) accounts of the inhumane lot of the ‘lunatics’ of the day. Martin Campbell’s earlier novel Sailor’s Heart had me humphing at the inclusion of contemporary phrases in what was intended as 1940s narration. Here, despite occasional lapses, the Victorian speech-idiom is carefully maintained. This anyway may be an unfair criticism: Historical Fiction permits the use of present-day language when characters speak to each other. The genre is also based on historical accuracy, and here this affecting novel wins hands-down.