Product Description

Set in 1957, this book tells the story of Spider, a lonely figure who returns to the East End of London after 20 years in an asylum. Spider moves into a boarding house and begins to write an account of his childhood, providing a disturbing vision of psychotic illness from inside.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #123251 in Books
• Published on: 1992-05-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Customer Reviews

A harrowing novel
In "Spider", Mr McGrath tells the harrowing story of a schizophrenic character called Dennis Cleg. He suffers from hallucinations - visual, auditory and olfactory - and from body delusions, he is physically regressed and has ideas of persecution. At the beginning of the novel, set in 1957, he lives in a shabby house along with other tenants, a "cargo of dead souls" as he calls the place, the landlady of which is a matronly figure, Mrs Wilkinson, who terrifies Cleg. As the story unfolds, the reader gets to know the circumstances which brought Cleg to live in this grimy place where "desolation prevails", in an area of London resembling "a clotted web of dark compartments." He feels that he would relish his solitude and memories were he not so easily thrown into turmoil by the latter. His existence is loveless, monotonous and grey as he often drifts further and further into the back parts of his mind where the reader follows him and tries to discern reality from delusion. A man like Cleg constantly lives in isolation, he has no friends, doesn't want any, doesn't like any. How could he, being permanently nagged by the certainty that others can destroy him with just a glance? From early childhood, being seen created in Cleg a deep sense of unease and he recalls imagining being "a coal-black boy who could move through darkness without being seen." Even years later "the misting and blurring of the visible world gave such comfort to the boy, and to the creature I have since become." Another reason for Cleg avoiding people is the frightening prospect of their thoughts invading his mind. "If I'm not careful these thought patterns of theirs crowd out my own, and I can't have that, I can't have other people's thoughts in my head."
Apart from a brilliant psychological portrait of the schizophrenic mind, "Spider" is designed almost like a detective story in which the reader slowly discovers what happened to Cleg in his childhood, the time he spent in a mental institution and the subsequent years at Mrs Wilkinson's house. Highly recommended.

An expertly told 'bad trip'
This novel draws you through the narrative of the protagonist, as related in his journal, into the mind of a schizophrenic man.
This world is paranoid, agressive and frightening. It is filled with images of decay, betrayal, erotoicism, and nightmarish insect and fiendish figures, such as the 'nightmare hag' which the damp on his bedroom wall and ceiling forms into, or the worm which Spider (aka Dennis Clegg, 'Spider' is the name Dennis gives to his 'true' self) imagines living in his lung.

You are drawn into this world slowly, imperceptibly, and in the narrative truth and illusion interwine. The book does re-pay re-reading. There are insights hidden which will be revealed with the information we gain as the story progresses.

The narrative begins by making it clear that all is not well in Spiders' world. He is in a house filled with 'dead souls' presided over by a woman who is obviously there in an official care capacity. She has an office in the front of the house, and chides Spider for not being back for lunch, and wearing too many layers of clothes. As he walks, he re-visits some scenes from his childhood, including looming gasometers and a bench by a canal, and contemplates his life. Back in his room, he pieces together his memories in his journal. He fills in the blanks with conjecture.
What this at first gives us is a sad wrenching tale of a young boy and his mother neglected by the alcoholic father. The father is prone to mysterious fits of rage. The mother copes meekly, a saintly figure, forever trying to build bridges, and nutures the boy.
The 'conjecture' comes in as Spider imagines hid father commencing an adulterous relationship. Soon he is dreaming that his mother has been murdered, and the fact that his mother disappears convinces him that his father has killed her, so his mistress 'Hilda' can move in. The boy witnesses his father and lover in bed, and sees the mistress in his mothers clothes, which she distends with her fuller figure, making them 'tarty.'

From this point on it becomes increasingly apparent that conjecture, illusion and reality are knotted and ravelled together. The mother/mistress begins to speak as his mother, and the parents express concern over the boys' behaviour, particularly his assertion that his 'real' mother has been killed. The narrative is playing tricks with us. But what?

As Spider delves deeper into his past, his condition deteriorates. His auditory, olfactory and aural hallucinations escalate. A visiting Doctor conforms that Spider has not been taking his medication. The warden of the house, Mrs Wilkinson, merges in Spiders' mind with the remembered Hilda...
The book is skillfully constructed and beautifully written in a mesmeric poetic language. As a whole it conveys the frighteneing hyper-reality of mental illness. Text-book symptoms are brought to life. The book is unsettling, profound and sad. It is an expertly told 'bad-trip.'

Hollywood Madness
Patrick McGrath's Spider weaves a web of intrigue and buried history. The tale starts out promisingly, with the narrator telling his own version of the truth. Set in the dingy domesticity of post-war East-End London, there are some nice touches to the development of Spider's story, although I felt that further development would have made this a much more fulfilling read.

Unfortunately however, McGrath concludes the story rather weakly. His narrator develops a tired version of mental illness, and the loose ends are tied up with a cliched Hollywood psychological twist, that could be predicted a mile off.