"This mesmerising story of a failed novelist compelled to ghost-write his way out of debt explores depression and psychedelic therapies with thought-provoking sway."
Brutally, bravely honest in its portrayal of depression, suicidal tendencies, failing to fulfil obligations, and failing to live up to one’s promise, William Brewer’s The Red Arrow also offers a luminous sense of hope that it is possible to emerge from the dark mist of depression experienced by his protagonist.
Our narrator was once a promising young writer with a big book deal to write a big American novel about a chemical spill in West Virginia. But, crippled by depression since childhood, he’s unable to write the book and winds up with a huge debt to his publisher. A way to work himself out of debt presents itself when an esteemed physicist requests that the narrator ghost-writes his memoirs: “the more of his life I write, the more of my life I get back”.
This is why the writer finds himself travelling through Italy with his wife, on a second honeymoon, but also on the trail of the physicist. As he digs deeper into his subject’s life, he peels back layers of own life, revealing what led him to this point, memories of his Italian grandparents, family arguments, a succession of obsessive distractions, worsening depression, and the transformative psychedelic treatments that saved him. His eventual meeting with the physicist is a devastating denouement - clever, unexpected and radiant.
| Primary Genre | General Fiction |
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