Please note that this title is currently out of stock but is available for pre-order. While we don’t have an exact publishing date yet, it is expected to be available within approximately 4 to 6 weeks.
Longfall Psychiatric Hospital didn’t break her. It refined her. The system mistook compliance for cure. Stillness for improvement. Darlene adapted. She learned. She waited.
When she is finally released, the world outside feels loud, disordered and careless. But freedom brings its own struggle for control.
As Darlene moves again among those who treated, watched and judged her, the roles of observer and observed begin to shift. Nothing is quite as it first appears.
Darlene did not leave Longfall healed.
She left sharpened.
A dark psychological novel about punishment, power and whether change is ever possible when you are someone like Darlene.
With an Afterword by Professor Paula Nicolson.
“A lean, unsettling, and genuinely intelligent piece of work. The prose has a clinical precision that suits the material perfectly.”
— Louise Candlish, Sunday Times bestselling author of Our House
“Darlene is totally unique. Quite unlike anything I’ve ever read before.”
— Maggie Brookes, author of The Prisoner’s Wife
“The true brilliance of the novel lies in its execution. Phil Shirley writes with a poetic elegance that clashes with the protagonist’s cold and clinical use of language.”
— Dr Holly Chinnery, Senior Psychology Lecturer and MSc Course Lead in Psychology of Mental Health
Phillip Michael Shirley was born in Stoke-on-Trent in 1965 and lives in London. A former journalist, he became an author with HarperCollins in the 1990s. His first book, Miracles Can Happen, was published in 1996, followed by The Soul of Boxing, which was longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year. His other nonfiction books include Blood and Thunder: The Unofficial Biography of Jonah Lomu, Deadly Obsessions: Life and Death in Formula One and Where Is The Winning Post. His fiction includes The Rivers That Run Through Us and Darlene.
