'The Book of Malcolm' is a poignant memoir documenting his son's struggle with schizophrenia. Sutherland provides a raw and honest account of navigating the challenges of mental illness and the healthcare system, offering valuable insights into resilience and family dynamics.

This is an emotional book and is well written. There is a hard read due to the subject of mental illness.

An incredibly poignant and powerful story about love and loss. Such an insight into the mental health of a young man. It’s witty, revolutionary and sometimes cuts a little too close to home but it was perfect

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for approving me for this arc

This book takes you on an emotional rollercoaster which is Malcolm’s life. He seems to eloquent and calm and later in his life this schizophrenic break he had caused epilepsy leading to his death.

Ultimately it’s very sad but he seemed like such a beautiful person through and through

This is a very hard book for me to review. The book was published after the author’s death. I usually try to think about what the author could have done differently when writing a review but it is hard to think of alternative options knowing the author died during the publishing process.

This book is full of death and mental illness. The story starts with the time period immediately before and after Malcolm’s death. I’m not sure why the author chose to start this way. Readers get to know Malcolm in a very distanced way, through those who attend the funeral and share their thoughts with the family. If you’ve lost someone important to you, you know how hard funerals can be, people say strange things and act very strangely and you just want to somehow go back to “normal”. It’s uncomfortable for everyone. This is how the story starts.

The middle of the book is about Malcolm’s childhood and teen years. It’s a bit boring. I didn’t feel like I got a much more clear understanding of Malcolm in this section as it was similarly distanced despite being the father describing his son. I did appreciate getting to know who some of the people from the funeral and how they were connected to Malcolm.

The last section starts with Malcolm’s psychotic break, and was what you would probably expect the book to be about. The long and challenging route to diagnosis, including some crappy doctors and social service workers, and some trial and error with medications. Like the rest of the book, this section was told in a way that readers are very distant observers. This section ends where the story began, with Malcolm’s death.

The afterword, written by a colleague/friend of the author, describes a lot more death, mental illness and sickness.

In general, the content of the book is pretty expected, though it would have been good to see more detail in the diagnosis section of the book. There was lots of journal entries from Malcolm, but it felt very fragmented. I think that someone who has experienced the mental health system, they may find this book helpful and might connect with the author, though I struggled to. I would recommend this book for someone who is interested in or has personally dealt with psychosis and mental illness in loved ones.

TL;DR: this book is not touchy feely, but it is an account of the challenges our mental health care system and it’s patients/families face. It might be hard to connect with the people in the story due to the writing style.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Dundurn Press for gifting me a digital copy of this book - 4 stars!

This is the story of Malcolm and his struggle with schizophrenia, as written by his father, a well-known Canadian poet and critic. The book is written is sections - the first detailing Malcolm's death, the second going back in time to Malcolm's history, then dealing with his mental health struggles. The afterword explains the devastating toll this took on the family.

This was a sad book - how could it be otherwise when written by a father about his deceased son? It's about how mental illness is such a struggle for all involved - patient, family, doctors. I lost a bit of interest in the book when it was dealing with some of Malcolm's thoughts, and it could have been the formatting of the ARC that led to a bit of confusion. But a worthwhile read.

A very emotional and touching recount of Malcolm’s life; from his diagnosis to his unfortunate passing. It’s especially touching as now both Malcolm’s parents have also passed away, and this is his father’s final piece of work.

Canadian poet, Fraser Sutherland, documented his son’s life with schizophrenia and his sudden death in a posthumous memoir, The Book of Malcolm.

…every day that week was difficult; each had the potential to be the hardest yet.

Sutherland’s memoir is divided into three parts – the first tells of the weeks following Malcolm’s death; the second is a chronological account of Malcolm’s life, including Sutherland’s recollection of memorable family moments; and the third describes Malcolm’s diagnosis with schizophrenia and his subsequent experience of the mental health system in Canada.

My interest was predominantly in the first and last parts, particularly how Sutherland and his wife, Alison, managed their grief after Malcolm’s death –

At some point I told people there was Malcolm, and there were Malcolm’s problems. And that, though the problems were gone, somehow one still wanted them. They’d mean he was alive. Where there were problems it meant they could be resolved. When they asked me if I wanted company, I said it was hard to talk to people. It was harder still to be alone.

And, in the last part, how they coped with Malcolm’s diagnosis, which Sutherland notes had been a ‘preliminary’ to death –

I kept remembering its low points, its twists and turns, its individual separate griefs.

For Alison, there was relief in talking, and Fraser questioned whether, ‘…just as expressing anger can make you angrier, expressing grief might make you grieve more‘ (For the record, it doesn’t). He notes that regardless, ‘…everything was either a distraction or a painkiller.‘

The second section read as a detailed eulogy, and lacked the rhythm of language that I had settled into. Nevertheless, Malcolm’s personality, values and interests shine through in each section – he was clearly a person who was interested in learning, had a particular sense of humour (and enjoyed a prank), was artistic, and was deeply spiritual.

The book had far more religious and spiritual content than I expected, and had I known that, I probably would have bypassed reading it. Obviously addressing issues of spirituality comes up frequently in any book that explores death, however I try to focus my reading on memoirs that explore the raw emotions rather than how those emotions fit into a cultural or belief framework. That might seem as if I’m splitting hairs but when you read lots of grief memoirs, it’s noticeable.

Sutherland died a few years after he finished this memoir, and a friend provides an important Afterword that fills in some of the gaps and reveals more about how Fraser was a person (generous of spirit, social, curious). It also states that Alison, whose own mental health deteriorated after Malcolm’s diagnosis. took her own life a few years after his death. On reading that, I leafed back through the last section to land on Sutherland’s words that suddenly had a painful echo –

Craziness drives families crazy.

2.5/5

The Book of Malcolm was written by Fraser Sutherland about his son Malcolm. After finishing writing this book, Fraser passed away. In it, he describes the life of his son Malcolm who died from a seizure at the age of 26. His son lived with schizophrenia and book is sort of broken into three sections. In the first Fraser describes the events leading up to his son's death. He was in the process of transitioning from one antipsychotic medication to another and one of the potential size effects was seizures. He experienced a seizure and went through multiple tests in the aftermath. And then shortly after, he was found dead after experiencing another seizure in the night. Fraser then turns the clocks back to tell the life of his son, starting with his infancy and childhood through adolescence, and describes the unexpected turn in his life when he experiences his first psychotic episode. Coming from the mental health field, it was interesting to identify the commonalities and differences in the mental health treatment options in Canada (where this takes place) and in America. The final section was both the most illuminating and challenging. Fraser intersperses writings of Malcolm and his own thoughts. Part of the issue may have just been the formatting of the ARC which made it difficult for me to figure out who was "talking" at times. But it was a fascinating look into the thoughts of someone experiencing breaks from reality.

Thank you to Dundurn Press via NetGalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for honest review.

Very moving!
A father reflects on the rich life of his son, who died suddenly at twenty-six after living with schizophrenia.

On the morning of Boxing Day 2009, the poet Fraser Sutherland and his wife, Alison, found their son, Malcolm, dead in his bedroom in their house. He was twenty-six and had died from a seizure of unknown cause. Malcolm had been living with schizophrenia since the age of seventeen.

Fraser’s respectful narration of his son’s life — the boy’s happiness as well as his sufferings, his heroic efforts to calm his troubled mind, his readings, his writings, his experiments with religious thought. This is a master writer’s attempt to give his son’s life shape and dignity, to memorialize his life as more than an illness. And in writing his son’s life, Fraser creates his own self-effacing memoir — the memoir of a parent’s resilience through years of stressful care.

Wow, this is a great and heartbreaking book written by a father who clearly loves his son and the many difficulties they face together as a family. I found this to be beautifully written and truest eye opening, schizophrenia is a taboo subject, still!!! In this day and age I loved this book and will recommend it to everyone I know. An absolute must read

Whew Nelly. As a parent of a child with mental illness, I understood all too well the beauty and tragedy and exhaustion described in this beautiful book. The Afterward left me in puddles and I spent the night thinking about this family and how strong they all were during Malcolm’s life. Heartfelt thanks to Rare Machines for the advanced copy. I’m grateful.

Wonderful book! Heartbreaking and an essential read,. This would be a great book to teach in a medical humanities or English class.

I found this to be a wonderful book, full of both moments of extreme happiness and absolute devastation about Fraser's son Malcolm's journey with schizophrenia up until his death in 2009. This autobiography provided a unique insight into the mind of somebody living with schizophrenia from a parent's perspective, offering a glimpse into the challenges faced and the obstacles climbed whilst enduring the stress of looking after his schizophrenic son.

The Book of Malcolm is the last work written by Canadian author Fraser Sutherland, only published after his death. In the book, Sutherlands relates to the life and loss of his son Malcolm, who suffered from schizophrenia. The book is not an easy read, and maybe perhaps that's why it couldn't grab me. It's written in a diary-style format, yet I very much struggled to get through the first two parts of the book. Perhaps because only in part three of the book do we actually really learn about Malcolm. Who he was, what he did, how he suffered. The book is raw and honest, but I believe would have been much more relatable if written chronologically - or at least mostly chronologically.

The book of Malcolm is a thoughtful and reflective novel on the life of Fraser Sutherland’s son Malcolm. Suffering from schizophrenia through his late teens and making great progress on managing his mental health, Malcolm dies suddenly on Boxing Day aged 26. In this novel, Fraser Sutherland reflects on the sufferings of his son and on the experience as a parent of a mentally ill child. Snippets of Malcolm’s journal entries are included throughout the book and in greater intensity towards the end. Particularly interesting was the insight into Malcolm’s spirituality & the chaos of his inner thoughts.
I found the start of the book was slow but after the halfway mark, I was more drawn to the narrative. The content is emotional and it is sad to also hear that the author died shortly after writing this transcript. In requesting a copy of this ARC, I was hoping to learn more about what it is like the experience psychotic episodes and schizophrenia. This book delivered on that and although there is no moral of the story as such, it is a beautiful celebration of Malcolm’s life.

Thank you for the advanced copy.

What a insightful yet heartbreaking read, I could not put this down. I will definitely purchase a copy of this and highly recommend this book.

Not an easy read but a vital one, this is a searing account of the highs and lows of a young man and ultimately a family devastated by mental illness. It’s unflinching describing the frustrations as well as the rewards of caring for a vulnerable young man. Beautifully written: every word lands on the page like a drop of blood from a father’s broken heart.

An insight into the mind of a young man malcolm plaguedby mental illness, his mother Alison who also struggled with her mental health and his father Fraser highly acclaimed author and editor who wrote this novel. It is witty, revelationary and sometimes cuts a little close to the bone.
An interesting narrative, Fraser has not held back on his family's struggles in dealing with the day to day of schizophrenia but told in a way that really involves the reader, as if he was sitting with you relaying a conversation he'd had the day previous.
I surmise that this family through their journals and journeys have made a breakthrough in the way mental illness is perceived and if you have ever had a blip in your wellbeing, this is a must read. Sad also but above all it is a book that portrays hope and belief through a very difficult dynamic.

Insightful and heartbreaking.
There are no words to describe the journey I went on reading The Book of Malcolm.
This beautifully written memoir, this tribute to Malcolm's life and struggles can also be a comfort to families going through the same trials.