Toni Davidson's Scar Culture, is a hugely acclaimed debut dealing with the controversial subjects of incest, child abuse and psychosexual healing. It appears destined to follow in the tradition of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Dice Man as fiction that challenges the way we think about psychotherapy and dysfunctional sexuality. Shocking, thought-provoking, erotic, beautifully written, sharp-witted, and always riveting, Scar Culture marks the arrival of an extraordinary new voice.
Scar Culture
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Amazon Review
From the beginning of Toni Davidson's Scar Culture, the reader knows that something has gone wrong: the first person accounts which form the bulk of this book have been found "at the scene"'. The familiar frame of a "case" study, then, but who has done what to whom is the question driving this book--moving beyond the conventions of its psychiatric/criminal frame. In "Click" and "Fright" we are forced up against the more unsettling ways of living, or dying, through childhood--Scar Culture is part of the contemporary uncovering of the perversity of family life--as well as a few fragile metaphors of survival (if that is what they are). Click takes "head photos", recording the utter commotion of life with mother and father, Exit and Panic; Fright passes into a state of waiting for his brother to return, for his (dead) mother "to sing something, anything, into my ear". Curtis Sad's narrative starts to pull the book together, or further apart, in its presentation of the madness of a psychotherapy which becomes inseparable from the abuse it is supposed to cure. Within the tradition of a literary challenge to psychiatry, Scar Culture is taking its chance, too, from the perceived crisis of family and therapy in late 20th- century culture--it may become, in fact, a powerful contribution to that crisis.--Vicky Lebeau
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
* Toni Davidson's first novel is a clever, well-executed work. Independent on Sunday * Veering between the poetic and clinical, human and monstrous ScarCulture is a brave, highly filmic, and complex book displaying a realintelligence prepared to tackle taboo territory with imagination andsubversive humour. It could well be destined for cult status. The Herald * A macabre, disturbing and bitterly funny look at sexual abuse and psychiatry. Dazed and Confused * As an account of pure, undiluted wickedness, it is hard to imagine thisnovel being bettered - but perhaps it is just a question of waiting.Davidson's novel is a deeply pessimistic work, but also a timely andnecessary one. Daily Telegraph
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First Sentence
I heard the groans first, 17 whistling, chesty groans, the familiar rumble of my father's tones, seeping out the cracks in the wooden slats of the hut. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
I heard the groans first, 17 whistling, chesty groans, the familiar rumble of my father's tones, seeping out the cracks in the wooden slats of the hut. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
SCAR CULTURE begins in the world of Click, only child of travellers-going-nowhere Panic and Exit, whose makeshift caravan home sets the scene for the disintegration of theit ill-considered coupling. Click absorbs the turmoil of an emotionally immature mother and enigmatic detached father afraid of the true nature of his love for his son, storing events as imaginary instamatic photos. Next comes the tale of Fright, taped sections bear witness to the mysterious death of his mother and the suffering of his beloved elder brother at the hands of their manically sadistic father. Jake knows the truth behind his mother's death and the danger of having that knowledge is soon manifest. These two threads are brought together when Click and Fright come under the auspices of psychitherapist Sad, a borderline sociopath incestuously involved with his younger sister Josie. Sad sees his two new patients as ideal to test his thoery of 'milieu therapy', psychological probing through recreation of the scenes of traumatic events. Enlisting the help of his other patients, Sad begins his ultimate experiment.... SCAR CULTURE is frequently and unnerving and disturbing read, but its strength is that these reactions are generated much more by what is not written than from the text itself. The book is however not unrelenting - there are frequent moments of touching beauty-in-the-heart-of-darkness and wicked humour. This is the first published novel by this author, and while it might be said that the style is not yet fully refined, the book does reveal a distnctive new voice. Remember you saw it here first!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a fantastic book, giving an insight into human psychi, and a dark and truly real presentation of the cruelty of child abuse. It works so well as it focusses as much upon the psychological aspect, as it does the physical or sexual from the perspective of the victim. It also gives a condemning picture of the world of psychiatry, a world bound by rules and regulative processes, but also shows the dangers of radical medlings with the human condition. A world where the insane run the institution. This is an absolutely fantastic and compelling read, which i would recommend to anyone who is not fazed by tales of cruelty.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I was amazed by this book. Being both a mental health practitioner as well as a survivor of physical abuse, I thought I would be appalled by this book, thought I would simply have a knee-jerk reaction to it because of who I am. But I didn't. The book didn't try to be a guidebook or a handbook for the victims of abuse - there are plenty of those - this was a fictional, satire using extremes to expose the normal which is so often sidelined. The book far from being sensational employs subtle and creative devices to record the horror and refuses to exploit the harrowing tale of the two victims. It tells it how it was for them - one persons experience is hardly going to be the same for another. Instead it creates an anti-hero, a research psychologist who goes too far trying to prove his own pet theories and forgets that his patients are human beings. This is a humane, difficult, but ultimately rewarding read.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
First off, I'm delighted to be the first to put pen to paper about this wonderful book, so to speak. This really is a great peice of work particularly given the employment Toni Davidson finds himself in (a primary school teacher). It continues the brave publishing force of Jamie Byng at Cannongate through his Rebel Inc imprint and this modern classic (to be) does not let the side down.
It's a horrifying tale of utter brilliance. after the first two chapters (Click and Fright) I thought I was reading a series of (long) short stories, but no, Davidson brilliantly pulled the theme together in the twisted, in every sense, last chapters.
It reads like a detective novel, with the usual attention to detail, but the characters are totally sympathetic. Albeit the subject matter is not to everyone's taste.
As a result I think this book will become much talked about, but probably sell few copies. A shame because the minor controversy it has already caused in Scotland is not justified when one considers the skill of the writing.
Scotland has a reputation for controversial writing and publishing, no doubt the paperback will solicit a patronising quote or two from the master of hype, Irvine Welsh; but like Alan Warner, Toni Davidson shows Irv that great writing is far, far more important than great PR.
I can hardly wait for book number two.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book starts with two accounts, seemingly unrelated, of a child's experience of abuse. The stories are told in a way that is disorientating and as reader you hope these narrators are as unreliable as they appear. Then enter Sad. The psychologist who should make sense of all this. He abuses them all over again, using them as subjects for his experimental approach. Like Click's hidden pictures they are left exposed and more fragmented than ever. A book reminiscent of the magnificent House Mother Normal by BSJohnson.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I know it is very trendy to rave about scottish writers and I am a scot and love many scots authors. Child abuse is also an extremely socially popular subject, and davidson deals with it very badly. Over sensational and beautifully poetic, I feel that his writing talent could have been better put to use on a subject he knew more about. Child abuse, as I well know - being a victim of it - is nothing like this - and to put the two victims of the book - click and fright - in the hands of an uncaring and abusive psychiatrist who fails everybody left me feeling both flat and angry when I put this book down. I hope that this review will be printed to encourage the polemical debate it deserves. Dr Caroline Warner
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