#BlogTour-‘Juliet The Maniac’ by Juliet Escoria

‘Juliet the Maniac’ by Juliet Escoria is published in paperback format by Melville House Publishing.

About the book…

Debut coming-of-age novel from the “indelible, shrewd and frank and real” (Emily Gould) writer DAZED describes as “a combination of Denis Johnson and Joan Didion”

It’s 1997, and 14-year-old Juliet has it pretty good. But over the course of the next two years, she rapidly begins to unravel, finding herself in a downward trajectory of mental illness and self-destruction.

An explosive portrayal of teenage life from the perspective of The Bad Friend, JULIET THE MANIAC is a bold, stylish breakout book from an author already crackling on the indie scene.

Many thanks to the publishers, Melville House, for sending me this book to review, it was an absolute pleasure to be able to read it and revel in it. It is so beautifully written which may sound odd considering the content,but it genuinely is.

It takes you inside the mind of fourteen year old Juliet, from the moment that she realises she sees things differently from her contemporaries, to the pupils at the new school she is sent to and then the boarding school which her parents believe will ‘cure’ her. She has deep seated anxieties and addiction to self harm extending to suicidal thoughts and actions.

This is just to warn anyone who may find this triggering, it goes to very, very dark places but that is exactly the point Juliet(the narrator) and Juliet (the author) are trying to make-mental illness is not something you can neatly package, throw pills at or ‘solve’, it is about learning to cope with this new part of you and create strategies that do not leave you fighting yourself at every step.

The stream of consciousness from inside Juliet’s head made me think that this was autobiographical. The detail which Juliet Escoria uses to describe the effects of medication and drugs is very vivid and raw so I sense there is some overlap between both of them.

The years from 14 to 18 are well detailed,before leaping forward to being married and a mother in her 30’s. This gives the impression that something has happened, something which has left book Juliet as a functioning member of society. Whether it is a specific therapy regime or medication,or even a third option is left unsaid.

You don’t know whether this has made a better or worse Juliet, how you live daily with the symptoms of bipolar is incredible, when you see how far she has come since the start to the book to the way she is at the end. It is unflinching and raw in its first person depiction of mental illness and although I was daunted about reading it, I am very glad that I did.

There aren’t chapters,more pages from diaries or thought experiments which leave you with choppy, 1-2 page thoughts on occasion which reflects the impression that Escoria is trying to make.It creates a very immediate and stressful sense of time and panic as you bounce from page to page and is a very effective technique.

Thank you so much for letting me be a part of the blog tour, my thanks to Juliet(both of them) and Melville House for my review copy.

‘Juliet The Maniac’ is out now in paperback at all good bookshops.

About the Author..

JULIET ESCORIA is the author of the poetry collection ‘Witch Hunt’ (Lazy Fascist Press 2016) and the story collection ‘Black Cloud’ (CCM/Emily Books 2014), which were both listed in various best of the year roundups. Her writing can be found in places like Lenny, Catapult, VICE, Prelude, Dazed, and Hobart and has already been translated into many languages. She lives in West Virginia with her husband, the writer Scott McClanahan.