A groundbreaking novel exploring the intersection between race, class and mental health in the UK
It is the 1990s, and Gloria is living in a London psychiatric ward. She is unapologetically loud, audacious and eternally on the brink of bursting into song.
After several months of uninterrupted routine, she is joined by another young black woman - Merle - who is full of silences and fear.
Unable to confide in their doctors, they agree to journal their pasts. Whispered into tape recorders and scrawled ferociously at night, the remarkable stories of their lives are revealed.
In this tender, deeply-moving depiction of mental health, Roy creates a striking portrait of two women finding strength in their shared vulnerability, as they navigate a system that fails to protect them. Life-affirming and fearlessly hopeful, this is an unforgettable story.
A groundbreaking novel exploring the intersection between race, class and mental health in the UK
It is the 1990s, and Gloria is living in a London psychiatric ward. She is unapologetically loud, audacious and eternally on the brink of bursting into song.
After several months of uninterrupted routine, she is joined by another young black woman - Merle - who is full of silences and fear.
Unable to confide in their doctors, they agree to journal their pasts. Whispered into tape recorders and scrawled ferociously at night, the remarkable stories of their lives are revealed.
In this tender, deeply-moving depiction of mental health, Roy creates a striking portrait of two women finding strength in their shared vulnerability, as they navigate a system that fails to protect them. Life-affirming and fearlessly hopeful, this is an unforgettable story.
A groundbreaking novel exploring the intersection between race, class and mental health in the UK
Jacqueline Roy (Author)
Jacqueline Roy is a dual-heritage author, born in London to a black
Jamaican father and white British mother. After a love of art and
stories was passed down to her by her family, she became
increasingly aware of the absence of black figures in the books she
devoured, and this fuelled her desire to write. In her teenage
years she spent time in a psychiatric hospital, where she wrote as
much as possible to retain a sense of identity; her novel The Fat
Lady Sings is inspired by this experience of institutionalisation
and the treatment of black people with regards to mental illness.
She rediscovered a love of learning in her thirties after
undertaking a Bachelors in English, and a Masters in Postcolonial
Literatures. She then became a lecturer in English, specialising in
Black Literature and Culture and Creative writing at Manchester
Metropolitan University, where she worked full time for many years,
and was a tutor on The Manchester Writing School's M.A. programme.
She has written six books for children, and edited her late
father's novel No Black Sparrows, published posthumously. A second
novel for adults will be published in 2022. She now lives in
Manchester.
Bernardine Evaristo (Introducer)
Bernardine Evaristo, MBE, is the award-winning author of eight
books of fiction and verse fiction that explore aspects of the
African diaspora. Her novel Girl, Woman, Other made her the first
black woman to win the Booker Prize in 2019, as well winning the
Fiction Book of the Year Award at the British Book Awards in 2020,
where she also won Author of the Year, and the Indie Book Award.
She also became the first woman of colour and black British writer
to reach No.1 in the UK paperback fiction chart in 2020.
We need to hear stories like this today more than ever . . . Still
as relevant today as it was in the 2000s
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