The Monkey-Puzzle Tree

Elizabeth Nickson Bloomsbury, pounds sterling5.99, pp 277 ISBN 0 7475 2038 0

The Monkey-Puzzle Tree is ill served both by its melodramatic cover and by the publishers' blurb. In fact it is far more compelling than is implied, and for other reasons.

Elizabeth Nickson has written a novel purporting to outline the events surrounding her mother's mistreatment at the hands of psychiatrists in Canada in the era of the Cold War. The time is relevant, for the mode of “therapy” dispensed was part of a wider …