In addition to confronting descriptions of the effects of psychosis, partly the consequence of drug use, there are a variety of tales of sex, work and other disasters. However, we’re very different people, and her experiences are certainly not mine – she’s someone who’s led a far more, shall we say, interesting life. While I was brought to the book by following Spargo-Ryan on Twitter, like (I suspect) many readers, I picked it up just as much to read about myself as about the writer.

The text skilfully mixes medical science into the anecdotes, with the writer learning as she goes along just what it is that she’s facing, and telling us, too, without ever becoming dry or preachy. There are certain genetic influences (including a secret discovered after the fact), her unstable behaviour and emotions, as well as the inability to control her feelings and actions, to act like ‘normal’ people. Step by step, Spargo-Ryan explores her psyche, and her past, in an attempt to understand, and come to terms with, her mental illness. You see, the more the book slips into a narrative form, the easier it is to forget that this is a person, not a character, that everything is happening to (at times, the writer isn’t the only one confusing fiction and reality!). This last one turns out to be useful for a number of reasons. A Kind of Magic uses a Knausgaardian form of brutal honesty (with better jokes), and the writer takes us on a tour of all the usual haunts: anxiety, depression, psychosis, OCD and dissociative disorder. I’ll start with a warning up front – there’s a lot here that could be triggering. As the months and years pass, there’s certainly a lot to work through, but there are also signs of progress – is the road to happiness emerging from the darkness after all? Interspersed between these are short sections in which she briefly describes her visits to a new therapist. After a life of coping with mental illness, the writer explores it all in a series of sections looking back at pivotal life events, working out what was happening to her.

You see, life’s not always as wonderful as most people (and Instagram) make it seem, but if you’re lucky, a bit of help, and a touch of magic, might just be enough to get you through…Īnna Spargo-Ryan’s A Kind of Magic is a voyage of self-discovery in memoir form. We’ll be spending most of our time in my adopted home town of Melbourne, in the company of a woman fighting her demons the best way she knows how, day by day. Today’s review sees a shift away from my usual fare of literary fiction in translation as I look at a book far closer to home, in more ways than one.

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