'Rowan the Strange', reviewed by Michaela Hine

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Rowan the Strange

Reviewed by Michaela Hine

Rowan the Strange is a gripping and compelling novel, amazingly thought out and effectively written by Julie Hearn. A boy, Rowan Scrivener, is diagnosed with schizophrenia at the same time as the Second World War is happening. While the country is preparing for bombings and evacuating children to safer areas, Rowan is being sent away himself, not to a place like Weymouth, but to a lunatic asylum.

‘He was being evacuated, like Laurel, only not to the same place or as a matter of safety – unless you counted the safety of anyone who happened to be around him when he panicked, which was probably exactly what his parents were most worried about.’

His fits had deteriorated and for the safety of himself and others, his family had decided the doctors would be able to cure him and get rid of the ‘voice’ in his mind.

When Rowan reaches the lunatic asylum, he is immediately diagnosed with schizophrenia. The doctors want to eliminate the ‘voice’ in his head, so decide to perform electroconvulsive therapy on Rowan. This, in the time of the war, was still being trialled to see whether it worked. It was later to be known that it was very damaging to the brain. The doctors however did not know this and thought that because it calmed patients down, it must have been effective. During examination, while a German doctor, Doctor Von Metzer, is asking Rowan questions about his family pictures, the ‘voice’ returns.

‘If he touches your mother, said the voice. If his filthy Jerry finger lands on the mother’s face she will feel it like a red-hot brand. [...] Grab the tray. Make a run for it. BITE the sodding Nazi bastard if you have to [...]. What are you waiting for? Do it NOW!’

The voice takes over Rowan’s mind and makes him think things he doesn’t actually think himself. For example, in the above quotation, Rowan is labelling the Doctor a ‘Nazi’, purely on his race. However, later in the novel, Rowan stands up for Doctor Von when a mob targets him because of him being German.

‘”Doctor Von would never hurt a fly [...] He’s not a spy. He’s not interested in the war. Not really. His mission in life is to keep people alive and happy in their minds. He is a good man. Please tell others to leave him alone”’

I think that this shows how the voice did not reflect Rowan’s character. It took over his mind and made him say things that he wouldn’t usually say or think. This was why the voice needed to be controlled. However, I think that the therapy they used was very destructive to a person’s mind, because while the doctors thought they were just destroying the voices in people, they were also wiping out people’s memory and parts of their personality. A girl in the plot, Dorothea, has the therapy when she injures a nurse in one of her fits. Dorothea sees angels and her own companion is Joan of Arc. This aspect of her made up her personality, because with Joan around she was very quick-witted and cynical. However after the therapy, she changes. She won’t comment sharply on things and can’t be bothered to be rude.

‘’She’s gone,’ she croaked, the tears rolling faster and faster. ‘I can’t see her anymore. I can’t hear her. Joan’s gone. She’s really gone.’’

The therapy had taken away part of Dorothea, and that change, I found out later in the novel, was irreversible. Doctor Von states later in the book how the patients who had been ‘healed’, probably hadn’t been helped by the therapy.

‘Sometimes, doctor, I wonder ... did the electricity banish the voice in Rowan Scrivener’s head or was it something else- his faith in the treatment? ... his own willpower? ...some click or twist in his brain that might have happened anyway, whether he had come to us or not?’

I think this is a key point in the book; it is questioning whether mental illness can be healed physically, or whether it is something that has to be overcome by the patient themselves.

I really liked this novel. I especially liked Doctor Von as a character. At the start of the book, I thought that his intentions were just to do his job and prove the electroconvulsive therapy to be effective. However, as I read on, I realised that he genuinely did care for the patients and actually wanted to see them get better. Somehow, a particular quotation from the book highlighted his caring personality to me.

‘It is ridiculous, von Metzer thought, that the only chairs on this ward, apart from my own, and the bath chair with the straps, are bolted to the floor, so cannot be moved from place to place. My test-cases are not the types to hurl chairs at one another. I will get them more chairs, for looking out at the snow.’

Hearn also showed through Doctor Von how many nice people could be stereotyped. Because he was German, many accused him of being a spy or blamed him for the war. But really, he just wanted to treat his patients. Here, during the play, many of the audience are uncomfortable with the fact a German is performing the villain’s part.

‘People who had never actually met von Metzer- including Rowan’s own family- were thrown, more than anything, by the accent. Was it real, or phoney? Was this man a Jerry or not? [...] Doctor Von is a good man, Rowan wanted to yell from the wings.’

This novel really impressed me and Hearn really managed to piece together a clever and realistic plot. For this I give it 9/10.