Desperation
My novel ‘Desperation’ is about Kate, a young women who is struggling to come to terms with the aftermath of her dead mother’s weird and vicious behaviour; a life that has induced in her a paraphilia – sexual pleasure in being caned or spanked. While these desires are instrumental in getting Kate into the trouble I have written about it is not the main story. That involves her flight to survive retribution from a famous man (and those around him) who used to be part of her mother’s life.[Image Credit: lokomotiv]
Desperation, like most of my books, is based on a woman reinventing herself: a psychological thriller. This style comes from my years working as a community mental health counsellor, lecturer and writer in London where I encountered many hundreds of people trying to live normal lives when their family backgrounds had ‘proved’ to them that no such thing existed.I thought of them as ‘the walking wounded’ – people who drew little interest from the National Health Service and were very much left to their own devices. I used to field test my recovery books and booklets with these clients – finding out what they needed to know that wasn’t in the endless self-books available in most bookshops – and this was a great apprenticeship for writing novels.
I could write volumes about the courage and strength it requires to apply recovery techniques day after day when one’s mind is saying they are useless or not needed and of course most people simply don’t want to hear about another person’s anxiety or obsessive problems which may seem to them quite trivial or even a sign of weakness. Back in the day I did a good deal of radio and TV work and it was always interesting to see the expressions on the faces of interviewers and crew change from mild amusement to deep concern as I talked; because the stigma of mental disorder is still very strong. There is a statistic in England that suggest a person is more likely to get a job interview if a work break is described as a prison sentence rather than mental illness.
So I write about people who have problems, usually involving shame and guilt and put them in situations where they have to generate strength, courage and self-esteem. In ‘Desperation’ Kate receives a good deal of support from Vickie, an eighteen year-old girl she rescues from a street pimp and their relationship gradually develops into something that surprises them both.
If anyone is in doubt, I am not looking for sympathy for my characters. These are not women who think they deserve special privileges or to be looked after. They are women who know they have problems and are determined to overcome them whatever the personal cost. That part of this cost might be confronting killers or psychopaths is very much fiction – I hardly ever encountered that in my counselling days.
I still do a little counselling on anxiety disorders and OCD and would be happy to answer emails from readers of this blog. Contact me on dwcarver142ATaolDOTcom.
I am D.W. Carver. I have been writing virtually since I learnt to read. The 'Jill Garvin' books described on my opening page draw heavily on my experiences as a mental health community counsellor working in West Essex and East London, England in the eighties and nineties. I specialized in OCD. My organization dealt mainly with 'the resistant wounded' - people who, for one reason or another were not receiving support or treatment from the UK National Health Service. This has given me a slightly different outlook on mental health and a belief that there are vast numbers of people out there who would benefit from a small amount of skilled, practical help if only they could find it. I recall one client whose persistence while I ran a weekly support group was daunting. She didn't want to sit down in the group but stood behind my chair and asked questions every time there was a moment's silence and sometimes when there wasn't. I didn't want to be rude as I was aware how hard it could be for some people to enter a group situation, so I gave her very quick, very short answers about an exposure programme for excessive washing. A few weeks later she returned to the group and declared to those present that I had cured her when everyone else for years had failed. Of course, it wasn't true, she had done it herself, simply by committing to a recovery attempt that she had chosen to undertake when all previous treatment had been imposed upon her. An anecdote - people who know me will tell you that is very much my style of 'treatment': that and laughing over the vagaries of life that present sometimes as insurmountable problems when in reality they are not.
About Desperation:
Kate thought that once her mother died, the pain she had caused would end. Then she discovered that a letter had been sent to a prominent television presenter on her mother’s orders taunting him with the fact that Kate now held photographs which would ruin him and probably lead to his arrest. Suddenly Kate is running for her life. She seeks help from Rob, a much older man whom she has only known for a very short time. While at his London apartment, she rescues a teenage girl, Vickie, from a street pimp and over the following days finds a bond growing between them that feels like a lot more than friendship; but with both their lives now in danger there is no time for thoughts of anything but escape and survival.Source: Info in the About Desperation was from GoodReads at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18945592-desperation on 06/12/2013.
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