Award-winning Author, Professor Paul Crawford on His Latest Novel

Award-winning author, Professor Paul Crawford tells us about his latest novel, The Wonders of Doctor Bent, which explores mental health and the battle to trust others.

Could you share with readers a little bit about yourself?

I started writing in the mid-1980s whilst working as a mental health nurse. Literary agent, Vernon Conway, who launched the career of horror writer, Clive Barker, took me on. I soon decided that I needed to get under the bonnet of literature. I completed a part-time English Language and Literature degree after my nursing shifts, gaining a top first and winning a British Academy award to complete a PhD on William Golding’s novels at The University of Birmingham.

Afterwards, I eschewed teaching literature, opting instead for a research career in mental health, resulting in appointment at The University of Nottingham, where I founded the field of health humanities and became the world’s first Professor of Health Humanities.

My first novel, a psychological thriller, Nothing Purple, Nothing Black, about psychosis, deception and the shift from the asylum to community care, came out in 2002. Fellow writers such as David Lodge, Sara Maitland, Paul Sayer and Roy Porter acclaimed the novel, which also gained an option for film with British film producer, Jack Emery at The Drama House until his company folded following serious illness (thankfully he recovered).

Since this first novel, and the understandable disappointment of not getting an early chance to step on the red carpet, my academic career took over with multiple non-fiction book publications, not least the recent new history, Florence Nightingale at Home, which won Best Achievement in The People’s Book Prize, 2021/22.

I also continued my yearning for film, leading the development of an award-winning series of short animations with Aardman to support young people’s mental health (What’s Up With Everyone), and as researcher for award-winning filmmaker Chi Thai’s new production, Astronaut.

When did you decide to become a novelist?

I fell in love with fiction and the idea of writing stories when all new boys at St Philip’s School in Birmingham got a copy of The Hobbit to underline the fact that J.R.R. Tolkien had been a pupil there. I was stunned by the hallucinatory quality of Tolkien’s writing. My passion for writing grew such that I completed a first unpublished novel, Ginger Cats, when I turned twenty years old.

How did the The Wonders of Doctor Bent come about and how much of your background in mental health has been brought to bear in the novel?

Sadly, I was sexually abused in childhood and have struggled with my own mental health. I was a wounded healer like Dr Bent in the novel. He self-medicates by riding his Harley dangerously, rehearsing suicide. I self-medicate by writing.

Following the success of my first novel and with the thrust of academic life lessening as I headed to retirement, I wanted to revisit writing fiction. In particular, I wanted to explore forensic mental health, how trauma can disrupt and change people and routes to recovery.

My long experience in the mental health sector, not least in my professorial role at the Institute of Mental Health, furnished me with insights into people with serious mental illness and deemed of grave and immediate danger to the public and often reside in grim prison-like, high-security hospitals. I wondered what might unfold if a medical director tried to reform such places to be less punitive and more creative.

What is The Wonders of Doctor Bent about?

A world of proliferating information and lies, on social media and elsewhere, is undermining our certainties. Yet this general loss of trust is nothing compared to what occurs in complex, inter-generational trauma, not least through adverse experiences in childhood such as sexual abuse, neglect or physical and emotional violence. In such experiences in the context of the family, the loss of trust can be so profound, so immense, that victims struggle to survive.

However, perhaps more note-worthy than this kind of devastation of trust is the marvel of recovery.

In my novel, The Wonders of Doctor Bent, we see both. I portray the devastating impact of different kinds of loss of trust but also the potential routes to recovery. The fiction delves into criminal accountability, mental health and the power of the arts to save individuals from mental decline. It asks, when everything is falling apart, who do you trust?

The worlds of Jason Hemp, an English lecturer, and Dr Bent, the unlikely Medical Director of high-security psychiatric hospital, Foston Hall, come together in this dark tale of murder, revenge and abandonment. Attempting to track down his twin brother’s killer, Jason finds his life unravelling in unexpected and frightening ways.

He faces deep disorientation as grief strikes and his sibling-dependent identity erodes. Visionary Dr Bent attempts to reform Foston Hall into a place of comfort, creating ‘his wonders’, all while facing his own mental health challenges. Like Jason Hemp, self-medicating Dr Bent has to fight for his own identity and capacity to survive.

Looking back, my writing life has grown out of complex, inter-generational trauma, not least through adverse experiences in childhood. Such experiences bring loss of trust so profound, so immense, that I have been seriously depressed. Like Lord Byron, who also suffered childhood abuse and the character Dr Bent who struggles with low mood, I too have battled against taking my own life.

Books and writing have been my self-prescribed medication, my recovery, sustaining me in my writing and in my work leading research at Nottingham’s Institute of Mental Health at The University of Nottingham. I am, like many colleagues contributing in the field of mental health, and like Doctor Bent, a wounded healer.

Why would the novel appeal to those who are dealing with mental health challenges and those who are interested in mental health?

This is a story that will resonate with people with lived experience of mental trauma and those who work in the field because it reveals how small a gap there is between them. As the lives of its two main characters entangle around a shocking, crime theme, there is much to learn about human needs and the place of creativity as a force for good. It is also a story that challenges perceptions of people who commit terrible crimes with diminished responsibility as only perpetrators and not victims themselves.

Do you have any other books planned?

Yes, the standout, gothic, motorcycling psychiatrist, Dr Bent looks set for a series. I am thinking The Wonders of Doctor Bent might bring the silver screen or small screen that eluded me earlier in my career. The seed for the next novel actually lies in The Wonders of Doctor Bent but more on that another time. See if you can spot it! The next novel is complete in my mind. Now it is time to manifest.

What readers have been saying..

A brilliantly written thriller which draws us into the dire consequences of adverse childhood experiences. It poignantly reveals the potential for recovery.

Gene Beresin MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

I loved the book! The Wonders of Doctor Bent is an engaging and entertaining novel. Readers who enjoy the way in which crime writers such as John Harvey and David Belbin have explored the seamier side of the city of Nottingham will very much appreciate Paul Crawford’s work, as will readers who enjoy the social observations of a novelist like Stanley Middleton. The Wonders of Doctor Bent begins like a whodunnit, but soon starts exploring more profound themes about family, companionship, revenge, incarceration, and mental health. Paul Crawford has created two memorable central characters, and draws on his own real-life experience of health humanities and creative practice to draw us into his vividly realised version of life in the contemporary English midlands.

Professor James Moran, Professor of Modern English and Drama, The University of Nottingham

A beautifully written and engaging psychological thriller that will keep you thinking long after the final page. Paul Crawford’s The Wonders of Doctor Bent is a gripping exploration of mental health, morality, and the human psyche. With impeccable prose and a thought-provoking plot, this dark literary thriller not only captivates fans of the genre but also offers profound value to those with lived experience of or an interest in mental health, shedding light on the complexities of compassion and accountability.

Dr David Crepaz-Keay, Mental Health Foundation

A moving tale of loss and love. Jason Hemp breaks down after his perfect brother is murdered and Dr Bent, an imperfect, thrill-seeking, motorcycle-riding healer, fights to transform the humiliating state of the public services. His revolutionary changes are undermined, and he is left wondering what it is all for, and resolves to repair his own dark wounds…

Kam Bhui CBE, Professor of Psychiatry, University of Oxford

Dave Chawner, author of Weight Expectations, Stand-Up Comedian and Mental Health Campaigner gave the kind of one-liner that you dream about as a writer!

Brooding, brilliant and beautiful.

The Wonders of Doctor Bent is available at Amazon, WHSmith, Foyles, Waterstones, Foyles, Cranthorpe Millner, and all good bookshops.

Paul Crawford PhD, FRSA, FAcSS, FRSPH is an award-winning writer and a pioneering figure in the field of health humanities, a discipline he founded to enhance well-being through creativity. He is the world’s first professor of health humanities and currently directs the Centre for Social Futures at the Institute of Mental Health, The University of Nottingham, UK.

Author Website: www.paulcrawfordauthor.com