B R E A K I N G A N D E N T E R I N G |
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Thus the mysterious Welsh healer describes  his dramatic life-change from sickness to potency, as he sits with Daniel in the early hours by a dark and lonely lake. Daniel is not impressed. More religious claptrap, he thinks irritably. Yet, only a few hours previously, the healer restored a woman's sight - a miracle, according to all those present. All except Daniel. A week later he revisits his old school, where the term "breaking and entering" takes on an altogether different import - sinister, obscene, and a shock to his whole system. Appalled by the long-suppressed memory, he flees from Wales, but finds that even in London - even in his mistress's bed - he cannot escape the healer. Breaking and Entering examines the conflicting claims of faith and reason, setting Daniel, the rationalist, against the credulous eccentrics he meets at the healer's camp. He has gone there only as a last resort, to seek help for his 13-year-old stepdaughter Pippa, who for the last two months has refused to speak. Daniel fears that her mute misery might be prompted by her discovery of his affair - his first in seven years of happy marriage, and a source of mingled guilt and ecstasy.
Reviews of "Breaking and Entering" Breaking and Entering is a
visionary fiction looking at surprise readers who prize Perriam's soul-ful and substantial body of work. The Glasgow Herald It can be recommended without reservation for its honesty, its acuteness and its wide-ranging humanity. Sunday Telegraph
Vintage Wendy Perriam - a grand-slam novel of sex, secrets |
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Author’s Comment "To research the novel, I visited several healers myself. Some were sublime, some sinister. I also camped for a week in a tepee-village in Wales, where I spent most nights battling to keep the tent up amidst hurricanes and hailstorms. At a Green Gathering in Powys, I joined New Age revellers in a variety of rituals ranging from the bizarre to the plain batty - pow-wows, chanting, labyrinth-building, dancing to native drums, and an orgiastic Full Moon party where we all charged around like stampeding buffaloes! The food was unremittingly brown and "healthy" and many of the people I met were ready to bare their souls (or bodies) at the drop of a hat. But it was all good stuff for my book. Its more serious side focuses on child abuse - Daniel's own sexual abuse at the age of twelve by the school chaplain, and the less dramatic but still insidious abuse of boarding-schools themselves. Daniel was sent away at the tender age of seven, and, under a regime of terror, learned not to cry, not to show his feelings. I attended several boarding-school Therapy Workshops, where grown but bitter survivors grappled with the problems seeded by those "prison-years". I also confront the abuse of bullying - rife today in every type of school. One of my close friends has a teenage son who was subjected to the torments of a bully. He couldn't sleep, lost a stone in weight, and became clinically depressed. And yet, despite these sombre issues, I end the novel on a note of hope, as Daniel is finally reconciled with both his wife and stepdaughter, and moves gropingly towards a view of life more open to mystery and the numinous."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - You can buy this book with a personal hand-written inscription by Wendy Perriam. See the contact details at the bottom of the newsletter or buying books section.
© Wendy Perriam 1998 - 2010
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