Depersonalization and Creative Writing: Unreal City [Paperback]

Part 1

Autobiographical

Chapter 1

Land Without Feelings: A Depersonalization Memoir

Part 2

Psychological

Chapter 2

Like Looking in Fairyland: The History and Pathology of Depersonalization

Chapter 3

The Sound a Noise Makes when it Ceases: The Literature of Depersonalization

Chapter 4

Making the Stone Stony: Depersonalization in Literary Theory

Part 3

Practical

Chapter 5

A Moonlit Interval: Showing and Telling in Fiction

Chapter 6

The Odour of a Rose: Showing and Telling in Poetry

Chapter 7

Crossing the Threshold: Quests, Epiphanies, Liminality

Depersonalization and Creative Writing: Unreal City explores the common psychological symptom of depersonalization, its influence on literature and the insights it can provide into the writing process.

Depersonalization is a distressing symptom in which sufferers feel detached from their own selves and the world. Often associated with psychological disorders, it can also affect healthy people at times of stress. Beginning with a first-hand account of the experience, the book goes on to argue that many well-known literary texts, including Camuss The Outsider and Sartres Nausea, evoke a similar psychological state. It shows how a concept of depersonalls-