The author and novelist Emma Forrest discusses her new memoir, Your Voice in My Head (Random House, 2011), with Joseph Planta. Forrest talks about her descent into mental illness and her recovery through writing, and more.

Your Voice in My Head by Emma Forrest. (Random House Canada, 2011) Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Your Voice in My Head

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver at THECOMMENTARY.CA.

I’m currently reading an astonishingly good book, Your Voice in My Head. It’s a memoir from the writer Emma Forrest who takes us through her life. On the surface it’s a sort of charmed existence—a talented young writer at 16 with a column in the Sunday Times, she wrote for the Guardian at 21, the same year she published her first novel Namedropper. Two more followed, Thin Skin and Cherries in the Snow, plus a life in the glare of pop culture photographers thanks to someone prominent she was dating at the time. But it all unravels as her quirks and eccentricities becomes damaging to her psyche. She recounts quite clearly her struggles with cutting and bulimia, the cruel relationships she finds herself in, as well as the effects of such crushing depression. And she’s just over 30 years old now. It’s wonderfully written, and Emma Forrest joins me now to talk about the book. Worked through in the book is her relationship with her psychiatrist, who saved her life. The relationship sort of begins after he dies, as she pieces together who he was, in a way paying tribute to all that he did to save her. www.emmaforrest.com is her website. She lives in Los Angeles, where she is a screenwriter. Your Voice in My Head is published by Random House. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Emma Forrest; Good morning, Ms. Forrest.

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