A Story of the Many
By John Morgan ISBN: 9781847478962
Published: 2009
Pages: 292
Key Themes: psychodrama
Description
GiddyBlue is set during the 1990s against the backdrop of the Northern Ireland troubles and the 1993 Football World cup. As these international events are played out, they take on a grim, personal, spiritual significance for nineteen year old Paul.
In a suddenly dangerous present, he begins a journey to find meaning, before the World Cup final, the time he believes is the day he has been ordered to commit suicide occurs.
This journey will take him to the darkest corners of his self and the deepest suffering underclass of Glasgow. Without the word "depression" in his vocabulary, only with the knowledge that he is heart sick, love-struck bewildered and alone he embarks. This is a world where he cannot trust his own senses.
It is a psychotic Catcher in the Rye; a Prozac Nation at the very extremes; a darker version of Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar. At times tragic-comic and other times, raw, this is a brutally honest, revelatory portrayal. This is also a love story. This is GiddyBlue.
About the Author
John Morgan, aka Paul Gorman, uses his real name because he feels that he no longer needs pseudonyms or has to hide his "secret shame:" The shame of Schizophrenia, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Emotional Disturbance, Depression and Anxiety.
He was born in 1973, in Bangor, Northern Ireland. In 1990, when he was sixteen years old he was a prizewinning student, by 1992, at the age of eighteen he had dropped out of Law school.
In 1998 he began writing and perfecting his autobiography, GiddyBlue to try to understand a universe where only Consultant Psychiatrists were authorised to give their opinion on.
To this end, he graduated in English from Strathclyde University, undertook novel writing classes, creative writing classes in Queen's University and the Open University. He then forced the mental health establishment to give him access to his medical notes. The final product of this is the psychodrama, GiddyBlue, his debut novella.
He has worked full time as a civil servant in Department of Agriculture for the last ten years and is a volunteer with Praxis, the mental health organisation. Currently, he lives independently in Newtownards, outside Belfast.