A Voice in the Distance, by Tabitha Suzuma

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'I think Aidan Chambers has finally been knocked off his spot. For the last six years, his Postcards from No Man’s Land has been my all-time favourite book. Admittedly, this was followed quite closely by Tabitha Suzuma’s A Note of Madness. But now A Voice in the Distance seems to outshine them both... This is a Young Adult novel par excellence. There are great highs and alarming lows and plenty of pace. We are totally captivated by the two main characters, who grow and change as they must in all Young Adult novels... I'm normally a disciplined reader, keeping my distance and holding on to my objectivity, but I did stay up to finish this last night. I just had to find out what happened to these two young people.' Gill James, Wordpool

'The efficacy of Tabitha Suzuma’s A Voice in the Distance extends from her richly detailed portrayal of Flynn whose loves, fears and losses are convincingly depicted. Use of the dual narrative device provides insight into the minds of the afflicted and those surrounding them. With studies showing one in ten children have a mental health disorder, this is a topical and reflective book with an emotional range that aids a breadth of understanding.' Jacob Hope, The Bookseller

'The mysteries of love are also probed in Tabitha Suzuma's A Voice in the Distance, the emphasis being once again on its delight and its despair. Flynn, its hero, combines being a brilliant classical pianist with being a sufferer from manic depression, an illness which is finally to drive him towards self-destruction; his girlfriend, Jennah, must cope. Psychosis, breakdowns, a spell in a psychiatric hospital are all part of the young man's existence but so also is the promise of a glittering musical career. Some sacrifices have to be made. With events narrated alternately, and equally convincingly, by Flynn and Jennah, Suzuma's novel effectively demonstrates that real love, sometimes, will involve setting the loved one free.' Robert Dunbar, The Irish Times

Synopsis

In his final year at the Royal College of Music, star pianist Flynn Laukonen has the world at his feet. He has moved in with his girlfriend Jennah and is already getting concert bookings for what promises to be a glittering career. Yet he knows he is skating on thin ice - only two small pills a day keep him from plunging back into the whirlpool of manic depression that once threatened to destroy him. Unexpectedly his friends seem to be getting annoyed with him for no apparent reason, he needs less and less sleep, he is filled with unbridled energy. Events begin to spiral out of control and Flynn suddenly finds himself in hospital, heavily sedated, carnage left behind him. The medication isn't working any more, the dose needs to be increased, and depression strikes again, this time with horrific consequences. His freedom is snatched away and the medicine's side-effects threaten to jeopardize his chances in one of the biggest piano competitions of his life. It seems like he has to make a choice between the medication and his career. But in all this he has forgotten the one person he would give his life for, and Flynn suddenly finds himself facing the biggest sacrifice of all. Told in alternating chapters from both Flynn and Jennah's points of view, this is the breathtaking, poignant sequel to A Note of Madness.

Extract

He looks down at his knees, the colour still high in his cheeks, and I can see the rapid rise and fall of his chest beneath his T-shirt. I want to reach out, touch him, say that it’s OK, but I can’t. I’m not even sure he is going to reply. I count his breaths. Seven, eight, nine . . .
‘When you feel that bad, that low, you stop caring. About everything and everyone. You can only think of yourself.’ His voice is hoarse, hesitant and barely audible, as if he is having to force the words out. ‘The pain is so . . . big, it takes up all the space in your body, in your mind, and there isn’t room for anything else. All you can think about is your own suffering, and how to stop it – you’d do anything to stop it. Anything. I really mean anything.’ He looks at me now as if imploring me to understand, chewing savagely on the corner of his lip, and I realize with a shock that he is close to tears.
‘What does it feel like?’
He shakes his head and looks away from me, out of the window at the bright late-morning sun. ‘You don’t want to know – ’
‘God, Flynn. I love you.’ My voice cracks. ‘Of course I do.’ I swallow hard, trying to suppress the rising ball of pain at the back of my throat.
‘I can’t explain it . . . ’
‘Try.’
‘It’s just this pain, this unbearable mental pain – often it’s your body too, and every part of you hurts. But you don’t really care about your body, it’s your mind. Every thought hurts like hell. Everything you see is awful, twisted, pointless. And the worst – the worst of it is yourself. You realize you are the most ghastly person in the world, the most hideous, inside and out. And you just want to escape, you just want to get rid of yourself, of your suffering, of the pain inside your head. You want to shut out the world and yourself, for ever. A-and death is the only option left because you’ve been through this time and time again, thought and thought about trying to change yourself, the way you think, the way you behave, the way you live. Yet it always comes back to this – the fact that you just d-don’t want to be alive – ’ He breaks off, turning away suddenly, pressing his fingers to his eyes.
I stare at the back of his head. My eyes sting, my throat aches. I want to hear this, I want to understand, but at the same time it hurts, on so many different levels. It hurts to hear that he can reach a place where he doesn’t care about me any more, doesn’t care about damaging me so much I might never recover. It also hurts to hear him say it, to hear him verbalize even in the most simplistic terms the agony he was going through, has been through, time and time again, while I remained blissfully unaware.
© Tabitha Suzuma

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