Book Review: The Shock Of The Fall

This novel is about a young man named Matthew and as the story progresses, so does he and his mental illness. Nathan Filer managed to create the most intriguing, gut wrenching and brutally honest novel about mental health issues from the perfect perspective; the sufferer. His background is within mental health nursing, so it makes sense that this novel captures the true essence of life and its struggles for any person suffering from any kind of illness. Matthew begins by talking extensively about his family; his mother, father and his older brother. From the get go it is apparent that Simon has Down's Syndrome and that Matthew is retelling a true story. The first chapter begins by mentioning, quite simply, that 'in a couple of pages he'll be dead'. From fairly early on, it is clear that Matt blames himself massively for his older brothers death.

The narrative style being from Matthew's perspective was what truly made this novel so worth the read; using his own therapeutic way of typing out his past (and at times the present) as though it were a story made it feel more real, somehow. Matthew suffers from schizophrenia and so at times, the narration could be argued as being largely unreliable as he regularly interrupts himself, losing his train of thought or suddenly wanders off onto a tangent. However, when you fit his mental illness into the puzzle, it does make sense that his thoughts would become jumbled. As a reader you hear about his childhood, watching his mother struggle with her own demons, life after his brothers death as well as his teenage years, smoking weed and other drugs with his best and only friend, Jacob who he met at Secondary School. It was after helping Jacob care for his disabled mother that Matthew got a job in a care home for some time.

In fact, it seems like Matt is far more capable of taking care of others than he is of himself; he manages to work a lot, hold down a job and flat all whilst living in filth and relying on drug and alcohol binges far too often; his Nanny Noo seems to be his saving grace for the majority of the novel, regularly visiting him and never judging. If weren't for her, he would never have received any help. For a lot of the novel you get a glimpse into what life is like living in a hospital. Matt often feels trapped inside his mind, physically and mentally. However he seems to find it easy to express these feelings through words on a page; he talked a lot about his favourite gift, his old typewriter from Nanny Noo and how he has always been creative, excelling at writing and the arts like drawing and painting. Throughout the novel, he talks extensively about his brother and how Simon is always in the room and he often hears his voice; however old Matt is, he always seems to imagine Simon at 12 years old, the age he was at the time of his death.

Overall, I absolutely adored this novel; Filer has compiled an excellent debut with a fantastic understanding of mental illness as well as the feelings of grief and loss. This story, although ultimately about Matthew, was also about how grief tears apart families, how many struggle to cope with the pain of losing a loved one. There was a lot of pain to be felt throughout the pages of this book; however the constant reminders of pain are described both accurately and realistically. Matthew's story never (at any point) glamourises mental illness or psychiatric hospitals, instead a believable yet shocking and deeply saddening story comes through. As much as Matt is both intelligent and caring, his health does affect not only him but his family and it is hard to read how individually they somehow struggle through their ordeal. My favourite character was one we only gained a glimpse from; Annabelle was a terrific insight into grief and how to handle it. This book was a excellent read, despite its tough content and I couldn't stop reading once I'd started, the writing is brilliantly handled; definitely worth the read.