In this post, I want to share three extracts from each of my two published novels. You’ll recall that these novels are “The Overlife: A Tale of Schizophrenia” (https://www.amazon.com/dp/191685219X), whose title I’ll abbreviate to “The Overlife” and “Three Kidnapped, Three Siblings, Three Furies” (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DR9K6YMG) whose title I’ll abbreviate to “Three Siblings.” Both are available as Kindle books and paperbacks. “The Overlife” is also an audiobook that can be found on Audible. The audiobook of “Three Siblings” is nearly complete.
The following three passages are from “The Overlife. A Tale Of Schizophrenia” by Diana Dirkby.
Extract 1) “It had become too much. The nightmares of my pre-teen years were coming true now I was seventeen. My mother demanded and got my total allegiance. It took an enormous amount of effort and time to help her with her struggling mental health and try to protect her from my father. I was showing signs of cracking up, from loss of appetite to excruciating back pain.”
Extract 2) “One day, I was in the kitchen carving some cooked roast beef. My father entered the room with an ashen face and seething with anger. Even given all that had gone before, I barely recognized him. He was on the other side of the kitchen table from me. He told me,” This time, I mean it. I am going to kill you.” He started to move around the table with his arms outstretched. I presumed he wanted to strangle me. I blacked out for a second. When I could see him again, he was closer. Instinctively, I threw the carving knife I held in my right hand at his feet in a move to scare him but not hurt him.”
Extract 3) “I believed that I only needed to look at a person for them to know what I was thinking and that everywhere I went, people were inserting thoughts into my mind. I was engaged in a silent global debate where the verdict was my complete unworthiness. Everything I thought I had accomplished with my life was a cloud easily dispersed.”
I’ll now quote from “Three Kidnapped, Three Siblings, Three Furies.”
Extract 1) “On the eighth day of the disappearance [of Mary Bell, Sebastian Ward, and Fred McCarthy], the three sets of parents shared disturbing proof that the three teenagers had been kidnapped. Overnight, someone had delivered a package containing the clothing their teen had been wearing when they went missing to each of their residences, as well as their broken mobile phones, along with a note and a photo of their child. The note said, ‘Your kid is with us.’”
Extract 2) “Ten days into the disappearances, the horror began. Each of the three sets of parents received another package at their doorstep in the middle of the night containing a DVD, a bag, a photo, and a note. In each bag was a severed tongue. The photo showed Mary, Sebastian, and Fred standing in a row close to one another. Each teenager had their right hand extended with what looked to be a tongue placed on their hand. Their mouths were open, and it seemed they were missing their tongues. Blood was oozing out and around their mouth, which had also painted their white tracksuits crimson. The content on the DVD showed Sebastian, Mary, and Fred getting their tongues slit. The note that came with the DVDs said, “Without their tongue, they cannot lie, nor can they hurt others with their words.”
Extract 3) ”It had been seven weeks into the ordeal, a week after Father Lewis had visited the three families, when the Wards, the Bells, and
the McCarthys received another ransom note. It was on their doorsteps on a Friday morning. It said, “We are the Three Furies,
Alecto (Anger), Megaera (Jealousy), and Tisiphone (Vengeance) from the Greek Myths. The siblings of Mary, Fred, and Sebastian need to
confess their family relationships fully. If they do, and we are satisfied with their accuracy, we will let your kidnapped children go. We want
Father Lewis and Isabel Morse to run the confession interviews. We want them transcribed accurately into a written text. Each family will
leave the written confessions of their children on their doorstep in ten days. More precisely, the confessions must be on your doorsteps
by 1:00 am on the Monday after the next one. If you fail to accomplish this task, we will take Mary’s vocal cords, Fred’s feet, and
Sebastians’s testicles. If you succeed in accomplishing what we ask, we will return your kidnapped teens intact. They will remember the
amputations and their pain and fear, but they won’t have to live with them. These are the only two alternatives we envisage, and there will be no negotiation. You have this one chance to get it right. Think about what we have amputated so far and what we threaten to do as
hints at what you need to get out of the sibling confessions. Think, also, about who we are. Ask Isabel.”
As we go forward with this blog, our scope will broaden. We’ll talk about writing novels through the prism of schizophrenia, complex PTSD, and absence-epilepsy, all conditions I live with, rather than focusing only on my schizophrenia. My books, though fiction, draw from my personal experiences and those of other people I have known well.
There is now a lot of information about my books, and how they reflect my schizophrenia, Complex-PTSD, and absence-epilepsy on
my website: https://dianadirkbywrites.com/, my Instagram account @dianadirkby_writings, my Facebook page Diana Dirkby Writings, my X-account @dianadirkby and my YouTube channel @DianaDirkbyWrites.
“The Overlife” is about a mother and daughter both living with paranoid schizophrenia. “Three Kidnapped, Three Siblings, Three Furies” is about sibling abuse. Though fiction, they closely follow my experiences and those of people I know well. They are also good stories, independent of focusing on the problematic issues they treat.
Diana Dirkby is a pen name. I worked for many years as a research mathematician in France, publishing under my real name Paula Tretkoff. I chose a pen name for my novels to avoid confusion between the publications of my two careers: mathematician and writer.
As in the new podcast, “Fractured Ink,” that I announced, I will focus on my mind, fractured by schizophrenia, complex PTSD, and absence-epilepsy, and how that fracturing affects the ink on the final versions of the pages I write for publication.
My website and social media:
My Instagram: @dianadirkby_writings (https://www.instagram.com/dianadirkby_writings/)
My Facebook Page: Diana Dirkby Writings (https://www.facebook.com/DianaDirkbyAuthor)
My X-account: @dianadirkby (https://x.com/DianaDirkby)
My YouTube channel @DianaDirkbyWrites (https://www.youtube.com/@DianaDirkbyWrites)