Derek Owusu joins Tom’s Book Club to discuss his powerful new novel, The Recovery House — a moving and darkly funny story about mental health, creativity, faith, friendship and finding a way back to yourself.
Jamal is a gifted young writer who wakes in a recovery house after a devastating mental breakdown. Surrounded by other patients dealing with their own struggles, he begins to find unexpected friendship, humour and connection. As music, literature and spirituality become ways of making sense of his experiences, the boundaries between illness, inspiration, God and madness begin to blur.
Derek discusses how much, or how little, of his own experiences made it into the book, as well as the role of humour, the importance of music - including The Cranberries’ Zombie - his relationship with faith, discovering reading in his twenties, and how he unexpectedly became a writer.
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