Reviews
"Chipmunka publishes work by and
about writers who have had mental health issues, and that's a
great thing. But Fleming also has something exciting going on
when he gets out of that space. This feels like a debut novel,
an outburst of pent-up energy and experience." (Stuart
Blackwood, laurahird.com).
"BrainBomb isn’t some Z-lister bleating about the excesses that
have led their people to book them into rehab under tabloid scrutiny.
It’s about an ordinary breakdown. So normal, one quarter of us
will, at some point, find out for ourselves." (Gillian
Weston, Borders
Books)
"At times the prose is the equivalent of a rollercoaster without
brakes. But there are wonderful descriptive passages, historic
fantasies, lashings of dark humour, irony, pathos, and enough
pop cultural references to trump Nick Hornby! Fleming presents
a multi-layered narrative, peppered with lurid flashbacks. He
shows a person breaking down, rather than just telling a story
about bipolar illness. When I read all about the protagonist driving
his parents and kid sister to despair, it made me want to grab
every 'celeb' who has ever used "But I'm bipolar, I am, musta
forgot to medicate" as an excuse for falling into paparazzi outside
night clubs, and bash their empty skulls together." (Pamela
Rook, Barnes
and Noble).
"Bipolar disorder is commonest among
young adults... There is much humour in Fleming’s story,
but within a page-turn this can twist into despair... Armstrong
imagines being confronted by brownshirt thugs in 1930s Nuremberg.
The outcome is shocking but underscores a point. While the mentally
ill are scapegoated as society's nutters, a infinitely bloodier
trail has been left in history by the sane and the nomal."
(Dave Lett, flipkart.com) |
