Portergeist

Fantasies combine with a loose understanding of what is really happening, questioning everyone's identity, perspective, resilience and voice.

Portergeist is a social history covering a fifty-year timespan explored through the distorted internal logic of mental illness, life as seen through the eyes of children and a very quirky humour. For those who have not experienced dysfunction on the level of this family, it is an unsettling read, but there is a happy ending, even for the last of the family's flea-bitten cats.

'I loved this book, craziness and all. Families can make or break us and the author has decided for the former, with a huge injection of fantasy and humour. The different family voices are so well delineated I feel I would know them instantly if I met them - a wild ride through a lifetime!'
- Maryanne Coleman (Goblin Market, Pandemonium)

'I couldn't put it down. For me, the references to the TV and radio shows of my childhood really pulled me in and I felt that I was really there, watching with the Portergeist as the family implodes. It works as a memoir and a fantasy and anyone struggling with a difficult family background should read this - some humour and a bit of a sideways look will always make things bearable in the end.'
- M.J. Trow