LATEST RELEASE SEPT '09 Hear Dawson explain his writing on
"Novel takes readers into Dramatic Life of Psychiatric Hospital patients! Excellent writing style"
"it feels authentic from beginning to end. It's not a comfortable book to read, but it is thought-provoking." From Blog Critics
DON'T LOOK DOWN Four men, age 18 to 81, have murdered, and now share a room in the secure forensic psychiatry ward. Who better to get inside their heads, and find both the tragedy and comedy of their lives than psychiatrist and novelist David Laing Dawson.
Frank has just completed a ten year sentence in a Federal Prison for manslaughter. He is remanded for an assessment in the Forensic Ward of a Psychiatric Hospital. On this ward Frank shares a four bed room with Joseph, a man suffering from severe depression and delusions of jealousy, David, a young schizophrenic man, and Henry Thornton, 81 years of age, sometimes confused, and possibly guilty of the mercy killing of his companion and lover.
Dawson explores the comedy as well as the tragedy of these four lives as they intersect in a dramatic way in a place none of them wishes to be.
This story has the ring of truth and insight only an insider can provide. And though the characters and events are tragic, the author finds many moments of shared humanity, warmth and good humor.
Four stars on Amazon "This is fiction which rings true and is quite a reading adventure"
ISBN 978-0-9810037-5-7, $19.95 US distributed by Ingram
A
new compelling story of crime, addictions, love and redemption, played
out in the shadows of a post-industrial steel town. Known as a Canadian
Elmore Leonard, Dawson is perhaps a little kinder and gentler but no
less real.
"a work of fiction that's as close to reality as it gets"
"Compelling
characters find their way through a storyline bursting with crime,
murder, addiction, tough love and tenuous redemption. Yet it doesn't
feel crowded. You may not root for the characters but I'm betting
you'll end up pulling for them."
"Slide in all Direction is a powerful read ... with a climax that really does blur the line between fiction and true crime." The Hamilton Spectator March 7, 2009
During
the tumultuous sixties, Dr. Robert Snow interns in a big city hospital.
Dawson lets his readers feel the triumphs and tragedies, the
exhausting, overwhelming experiences of hospital life and death. Set
against the social upheavals of 67/68 the author once again gives us
vital characters struggling in an ambiance that rings all too true.
Distributed by the Ingram Book Company, trade paper, 236 pages, $19.95 US retail (ISBN 978-0-9810037-2-6)
Is this hell, or just a psychiatric hospital? Dr. Robert Snow isn't
sure. Waking from a drunken stupor in a small green room, the doctor
finds he's on the other side of the diagnosis - in a place where life
and mental health seem to be going pretty cheap these days. Murder and
sexual abuse haunt the hospital, but Snow doesn't really care. He'd
rather be dead anyway. When a charming, manic cowboy and a world-weary
intellectual invade Snow's self-imposed isolation, they drag him out of
his depression - and into the heart of Essondale's black mysteries...
Distributed by the Ingram Book Company, trade paper, 236 pages, $19.95 US retail (ISBN 978-0-9810037-4-0)
