Filled with realism, heart and humour, esteemed Australian psychiatrist Anne Buist and internationally bestselling author Graeme Simsion (The Rosie Project) bring us into the world of physical and mental health in this unique novel.
A profound and engrossing medical drama by bestsellers Anne Buist and Graeme Simsion
Trainee psychiatrist Doctor Hannah Wright is back where she worked as an intern: the general hospital. This time, instead of dealing with patients’ broken bodies, she’s tackling their mental health issues, with a roving commission to cover the medical, surgical and obstetric wards. All the while learning that mental and physical health are inextricably linked.
Christina is planning to sue her obstetrician – Hannah’s ex-boyfriend – for mental distress during labour. Junjie‘s Olympic dream has been shattered by injury. Is he at risk of taking his own life? Max‘s bipolar medication might keep him level-headed, but it is destroying his kidneys. And Ishani claims that setting herself on fire was an accident, but her story doesn’t stack up.
When she’s not on call, Hannah finds herself navigating an unexpected friendship and the promising early days of a new relationship with fellow trainee Alex, before her grandmother reveals an explosive family secret.
Written with great humanity and humour, Australian psychiatrist Anne Buist and internationally bestselling author Graeme Simsion (The Rosie Project) welcome us into the world of mental health with compassion and insight.
The second novel in the groundbreaking Menzies Mental Health series
Trainee psychiatrist Doctor Hannah Wright has only just got her head above water in the acute psychiatric ward at Menzies Hospital when she’s thrown into the deep end of the outpatient clinic. Keen to develop her skills in talking therapies, she finds herself up against a boss who’s focused on medication and a senior colleague with a score to settle.
Hannah’s fellow first-years face problems of their own: on-and-off flame Alex is being bullied, Ndidi’s marriage is in trouble, Jon feels isolated and Carey is concerned their autism will be a career barrier.
While Hannah comes under pressure to seek therapy herself to confront a traumatic past, her patients’ health issues range from OCD to ice addiction, childhood abuse to the mental impact of ageing, and from bad parenting to bad genes. They all come to the Oasis.
Most mental health novels are told from the viewpoint of the person with a mental illness – the patient. We wanted to show the other side: the clinical perspective, perceptions and prejudices. We found ourselves drawn to a TV-medical-drama structure: each episode / chapter focusing on a case, but with ongoing characters and stories.
I think the result has many of the characteristics of a TV series: a big cast of characters; multiple stories and strands; takes a bit of getting into, but becomes addictive.
We hope readers will take a risk with a story structure that’s unusual in a novel, but will be instantly recognisable.
— GCS
The Glass House is the latest book from Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist. It’s the first in the Menzies Mental Health series, following a trainee psychiatrist as she learns on the job, beginning with the Acute Unit – the emergency medicine of mental health.
Here’s what the back cover says:
Psychiatry registrar Doctor Hannah Wright, a country girl with a chaotic history, thought she had seen it all in the emergency room. But that was nothing compared to the psychiatric ward at Menzies Hospital.
Hannah must learn on the job in a strained medical system, as she and her fellow trainees deal with the common and the bizarre, the hilarious and the tragic, the treatable and the confronting. Every day brings new patients: Chloe, who has a life-threatening eating disorder; Sian, suffering postpartum psychosis and fighting to keep her baby; and Xavier, the MP whose suicide attempt has an explosive story behind it. All the while, Hannah is trying to figure out herself.
With intelligence, frankness and humour, eminent psychiatrist Anne Buist tells it like it is, while co-writer Graeme Simsion brings the light touch that made The Rosie Project an international bestseller and a respected contribution to the autism conversation.
‘Highly engaging. Brings alive the frontline of mental health care’ PROFESSOR PATRICK MCGORRY AO, AUSTRALIAN OF THE YEAR, 2010
