David Forest

Psychotic Memoirs. (Coming out the Journey Within) David Forest

Publisher Marketing: It was to be an adventure - breaking with the old and finding out who I - David - really was. What begins as an optimistic coming of age story with promises of new friendships and romance, gradually evolves into the principle character and author (David) loosing touch with the outside world. This is initially through perceived stigma and paranoia surrounding sexuality and culminates in alienation and full-scale psychosis. David completes many milestones in his memoirs. He always wanted to live abroad, learn a new language and become immersed in a new culture and this is made possible with his studies as a law and language student. He explores his newfound home in Spain and in the process makes new friends and aquaintances. With one of these (Alejandero) he shares a particularly strong, intimate attachment but at this point the experiences have already begun to turn somewhat darker. This leads David to examine the concepts of self and reality, the bonds between people and the very ideas of life and being from a state of altered awareness. Entertaining with elements of humour and pathos the memoirs are at times poetic and poignant and lead to a philosophical and metaphysical journey within the human psyche and beyond. Although David is not alone during his psychological problems, by the end his internal exile is almost complete and the deconstruction of what it means to be a human being (living, loving, hoping, dying) poses many existential questions which we all may face at different stages in our lives.