Catherine Zeta Jones's frank statement that she is having treatment for bipolar disorder has been hailed as a blow against the stigma of mental illness. The Orange prize jury made their own small intervention on Tuesday by shortlisting a novel about a girl who is admitted to an asylum in the 1950s at the age of 11, dismissed by her doctors as a "mental defective".
Emma Henderson's novel, Grace Williams says it Loud – featured on this week's books podcast – is dedicated to her older sister, Clare, who spent her life in an institution.
It's one of several fine novels about mental illness to have emerged recently. Clare Allan's Poppy Shakespeare – shortlisted for the Guardian first book award – also dealt movingly and amusingly with life down among the "dribblers". Ray Robinson's first novel, Electricity, explored the the devastating effects of living with severe epilepsy, while Jonathan Franzen built the central section of The Corrections out of an extended riff on the surreal nature of Alzheimer's.
How well do you think fiction deals with the issues raised by mental illness? Which novels would you recommend?
