I certainly quite enjoyed this short novel, but I’m not sure it amounts to very much, being neither particularly original nor particularly gripping. It’s the story of Barry James who has been incarcerated in a quarantine asylum somewhere in the Great Karoo due to a virulently infectious disease afflicting the country. There’s no cure so death is probably the only way he will ever leave. As therapy he is encouraged to write down his thoughts and memories and it is these journals that comprise the book, as well as some notes attached to them. Set in the near future, it’s a recognisable scenario (the Ebola outbreak, AIDS) but I didn’t take away from the book any real sense of impending doom, and in general found Barry hard to relate to or feel any sympathy for. Many of his diary entries consist of him recounting his dreams, and let’s face it, other people’s dreams are never as fascinating to the listener as they are to the dreamer. It’s being billed as a dystopian novel, which in a way of course it is, but we don’t get to hear much about the background to this illness, nor if there is anything else happening in the wider world. All in all, a promising debut but not one that made much of an impression on me.

Set in a long term quarantine facility in Africa this is billed as a dystopian novel. I am not sure I would exactly describe it as that as although there are difficulties outside the hospital this is not a worldwide or even nationwide pandemic. The book centres around the writings of one man who is in this quarantine facility, the life in there and the occasional glimpse of the outside world. This is achieved through his diaries as well as there being various comments and discussions about the diaries.

I need to say from the outset that I didn’t get on with this book and gave up after 25%. I felt I’d read a quarter & had given it a good chance. It may improve after this but I don’t know.

I found the book quite disjointed and, frankly, quite dull. I felt the author was trying to create a book in the style of “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood by having sections which discuss the diary. I felt the author was trying to create an event – the quarantine hospital & its inmates which are then being studied at a later date. If this was the author’s intention it didn’t quite work.

Nothing much happens in this book. People come to the gates, a fight happens in the yard and the diarist has a setback. I wouldn’t have minded if the book was looking in detail at the people whilst nothing much was going on but it didn’t. The people were merging into one with little definable personality.

On the plus side I did like the fact that this book is set in Africa. Usually this type of book is set in America & occasionally Europe. I wish the author had made more use of this fact with the outside country affecting the hospital. There is occasional mention of instability in the outside world & finance issues but only a passing comment. Maybe that happens later?

This book just didn’t work for me.

I received a free copy of this book via Netgalley.

Asylum by Marcus Low is a new genre for me as I haven’t read the Dystopian Genre before, but after reading this I may read more. Sometime in the future the diaries of Barry James are found and are a piece of social history as they are the only written history of the Plague of 2022 and what it was like to be in the Asylum. Barry’s diary entries make up the majority of the book but there are chapters from further in the future that asses his writings as a piece of historical testimony.

2022, not too far in the future, sees a world that seems to have economic and social problems. There are hints at what is going on in the outside world but for the most part the setting is the Asylum. This is a quarantine facility for male patients of what they term as the plague, Pulmonary Nodulosis, a place where once you are admitted you probably won’t leave until you are dead. On reading the book this facility is more like a maximum security prison with is setting in the middle of nowhere with electrocuted perimeter fence, armed guards on the outside, a dining hall, gangs and no visitors. It’s clinical environment with very little to stimulate the mind give a bleak outlook.

Barry’s dairies give an insight into his character and his psychological state whilst incarcerated. His coping mechanism is to forget the outside world, not to think of those on the outside and his life before his incarceration. We do get snippets into his life before in his meetings with therapist Ms Van Vuuren, an attractive red head, and the doctor in charge, Dr Von Hansmeyer. What is interesting is that he becomes dependent on this meetings with Van Vuuren, and feels they have some connection; we all need to feel listened to and cared about and can’t completely cut ourselves off. As well as life in the asylum, Barry also chronicles his dreams, which are at complete odds with the stark reality of his life. He dreams of snow, dancing in times past and features staff at the asylum, lots of colour and sound. Being set in the Great Karoo of South Africa, snow would not be something he would have seen; the dreams see to be a complete contrast to his life. As he synopsis says there is an escape attempt, but I’m not going to say anything about that, I’ll let you read the book for yourself.

In Asylum, Marcus Lowe gives a vision of the future that seems very real and viable, and this is what makes this book such an unsettling read. We are privy to the thoughts and feelings of one man and how the effects of this forced incarceration and bleak outlook impact him. It’s brilliantly written and utterly compelling and if I say a little bit frightening, this could be our future. A great read that blends a harsh reality with vivid dreams of Barry’s imagination.

Set only a couple of years in the future, Asylum is a presentation of the journals of Barry Wilbert James, an inpatient at the Pearson quarantine facility for pulmonary nodulosis in the Great Karoo of the Republic of South Africa. These personal journals, begun two years after his incarceration at the Pearson are interspersed by a preface, notes and marginalia made by Barry and various academics who studied the archives at the Museum of the Plague in South Africa, a museum dedicated to the most serious outbreak of an infectious disease since the peak of the HIV epidemic.

This play with an authentic first person is enjoyable and fitting with the writing of Barry James who is also interested in being playful with the truth, in examining what truth and reality are in the face of illness and isolation.

I find it hard to know how to respond to the novel. I was gripped by Barry’s account. There were echos of Mann’s The Magic Mountain, another novel I wasn’t sure how to respond to. The ideas of death, of the purposelessness of life, of genius, of fabrication, of suffering, of longing, of suppressed desire, political corruption, a distrust of authority, all swim together in a novel in which relatively little happens. Barry is ill. He is listlessly interested in escape in various forms. He has therapy. He tries to escape. He ultimately identifies with the institution itself in a mimicry of the human desire for structure that civilisation plays out in all of us regardless of the particular civilisation’s moral fortitude.

There are lyrical passages, surreal dream passages, and the escape attempt across the hot desert landscape is one of my favourites, echoing a sense of forty days trial that TB enhances as breath and thirst burn through Barry’s fragile lungs. It is an apocalyptic account that nonetheless plays with the idea of human continuity. It is contradictory and sharp enough to cut itself.

I don’t really want to say more. Out earlier this month, you’ll know if the book appeals to you. Asylum is a novel that begs a rereading, playing with the idea of reconfiguration at an individual and societal level, physically and narratively.

Great read. The author wrote a story that was interesting and moved at a pace that kept me engaged. The characters were easy to invest in.

This was billed as a dystopian horror. However, it was about a patient who has been "held" in a hospital for 3 years whilst receiving treatment for a strange brinchial virus that many in South Africa are succumbing to. If you catch it you have to stay in hospital until you are free of it, a quarantine. really and not so dystopian to my mind. We get snippets of life from the POV of the patient/narrator, how there may be cutbacks in funding that will affect staffing levels, his paranoia that the doctor might be doping him on experimental drigs, fantasies of a realationship when he was "outside" and involoving his therapist. How gangs of men have formed in the hospital and fight (ike the would do in prison), a prison break and return (was it fantasy or real?).

It left me a bit cold ro be honest, nothing much happens and no answers to questions I had are received. I'm not sure I would have finished it if I hadn't received it to review.

I can certainly see why Asylum has been shortlisted for the 9Mobile Prize for Literature as it's equal parts compelling and frightening. It has been mentioned by other reviewers that they found the story quite confusing and that differentiating between Barry's dreams and his reality was difficult because they were often blurred together; I think that this was intentional on the part of the author and would like to think that Mr Low was making a point about the tenuous distinction between reality, perception, dreaming and consciousness in general. Make no mistake, this is a great read, but it will not be for everyone.

It's a quick, engaging story that deals sensitively with mental health and the issues surrounding it. The characterisation is interesting and original and Barry was so intriguing and enigmatic. It is the type of read that is thought-provoking and with all the elements in place to make it a page-turner. This is a profoundly disturbing existential thriller which held me captive for the duration and the harsh, unforgiving setting of the Karoo further adds to the tension underpinning the entire novel. The unreliable narration serves to illustrate the vastly different mindsets those with mental health issues face, but at its heart, this is a novel that shows the power and escapism stories can bring to an individual, and I can certainly relate to that.

Many thanks to Legend Press for an ARC.

A book about life in an asylum while being quarantine for a deadly disease?! Sing me up, this is the book for me. Or so I thought.

Great synopsis and premise, a subject rarely written about. However, this left me with much to desire. At about 21% through I was not connected to the main character nor was the story unraveling in a intriguing way. Wishing that the author would have had more character development for me to attach myself to the main character.

There is very little background story as to how everyone got infected what was the disease and how it effected the rest of the population much after I realized it was TB, but wished there was a better emphasis. As much as I do not enjoy too much of a back story, some is necessary in order to get invested in the characters. I also was confused with the preface and some of the narration in between the journal entries. There was a lack of coherent details that would have been conducive to the over all reading experience. The writing was just average.

Then there is the ending, which the inevitable occured. It was also predictable. I understand that this might be more related to government and how much h power they have if there was a killer plaque and the injustice of the government, but I wish the execution was better!

The premise for this book sounded really interesting. It was a quick read and the characters were interesting. Unfortunately, it didn't quite hold my interest as much as I was hoping.

An interesting premise with some intriguing characterisation and a provocative political subplot. Some of the relationships would benefit from more exploration to lend greater credibility for the reader. I really liked the marginalia concept, this worked well as a reminder to question the reliability of the narrator.

So, the synopsis sounds pretty enticing, right? I read it in one day since it was a fast read. It was interesting enough that it kept me reading because I wanted to find out what would happen, but it just fell flat for me. Not much really happens. Yes, there’s some action but in the end I felt like it lead nowhere.

Then there’s the fact that I was confused by the narration most of the way through. Was Barry dreaming? Was Barry lying? Was he still in his right mind? I’m still questioning whether or not I missed something but I don’t think so. I was excited about reading this but ended up disappointed.

Anyway, if the synopsis sounds good to you, try it out. I’m just giving my honest opinion. But if you’ve spent much time chatting with other readers, I’m sure you know that opinions on the same book can vary greatly.

I was intrigued by the concept, but I just couldn't keep my attention on this story. It was a bit confusing, and the characters didn't hold my attention.