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Jump to navigationJump to searchThe Sunlight on the Garden: A Family in Love, War and Madness by Elizabeth Speller (view source)
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{{infoboxsortinfobox1
|title=The Sunlight on the Garden: A Family in Love, War and Madness
|sort=Sunlight on the Garden
|author=Elizabeth Speller
|reviewer=Sue Magee
|genre=BiographyAutobiography
|summary=After a mental breakdown Elizabeth Speller looked at the history of the women in her family over four generations to see how their history might have affected her mental health. It's a beautifally crafted and very readable history of their hopes, eccentricities and sexual misdemeanours which sheds more light on mental illness than many a dry text book. It's highly recommended by Bookbag.
|rating=5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=256
|publisher=Granta Books
|date=2 April 2007
|isbn=978-1862079250
|amazonukcover=<amazonuk>1862079250</amazonuk>|amazonusaznuk=1862079250|aznus=<amazonus>1862079250</amazonus>
}}
When Elizabeth Speller had a mental breakdown she wondered if her family history might have played a part in her illness. As part of her recovery she looked at her family's past and in particular at four generations of women, at their hopes and half-truths, sexual indiscretions, eccentricities and the way in which they themselves had rewritten family history to suit their own purposes.
My thanks to the publishers, Granta, for sending me this wonderful book.
The book is well-worth reading just as a story, but if you are looking for personal accounts of mental illness then you might also enjoy [[A Secret Madness]], Elaine Bass' account of living with a husband who suffered from Obsessive -Compulsive Disorder. If you'd like to read about a man who worked his way through his mental problems by taking on an allotment then you might enjoy Robin Shelton's [[Allotted Time: Two Blokes, One Shed, No Idea]]. For fiction, you might enjoy [[Deloume Road by Matthew Hooton]].
{{amazontext|amazon=1862079250}} {{waterstonestextamazonUStext|waterstonesamazon=56765821862079250}}
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