Mark McNay’s second novel is a bleak tale of mental illness, drug addiction, dependency and selfishness set in… Norwich. But put all thoughts of Alan Partridge out of your heads because the immediate comparison that spring to mind for this book is Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting, with its view of the seamier side of Edinburgh; it’s not a complete comparison though – McNay’s book is more accessible (not least because there’s no need for phonetically-rendered Scottish vernacular), and concerned as much with mental as with physical health, but some of its characters are equally memorable and well drawn.

Gary is a paranoid schizophrenic living in the community; Charlie is his girlfriend, and a street prostitute. Nigel is Gary’s social worker. At the beginning of the book, which starts with one of Nigel’s regular visits to Gary’s flat, things seem pretty normal, and the book charts Gary’s mental decline from that point and the the consequences it has for all those around him. His constant companion is Galileo, his alter-ego, a spitting, snarling, swearing, over-sexed nightmare who gradually comes to control Gary’s existence; considerable time is spent on Galileo’s experiences, as imagined by Gary, and these start to weave themeslves more and more in to the developing real-world plot as it nears its climax.

Gary might be hard to like, but at least he has illness to blame; Nigel, who at first appears mild-mannered, middle-class, sympathetic, turns out to be a manipulative, selfish and distinctly lacking in ethics or self-control. To a great extent this is a story about the abuse of power for personal advantage – as the saying goes, just because you’re paranoid, which Gary undoubtedly is, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you, which Nigel does seem to be.

Charlie is a heroin addict who has turned to prostitution to feed her habit; while she is a victim of her childhood circumstances, and thus the easiest character to sympathise with, she can also be manipulative and sly. Ultimately, though, she’s more sinned against than sinning, and McNay describes her joyless existence with a genuine sense of conviction.

I liked McNay’s style: he writes Nigel and Galileo in the third person, Charlie in a mixture of third and first person, and Gary solely in the first person, which is undoubtedly the best way to give the necessary insight in to his mental state. It works brilliantly, and is complemented by plenty of snappy dialogue and an efficient writing style. The lack of speechmarks for dialogue in some passages may annoy some readers, but I think it suits the quickfire exchanges, and for Gary it brilliantly reflects the rapidly vanishing distinction between what’s in his head and what’s real.

Don’t read Under Control if you want cheering up – it’s not a novel from which any of the central characters emerge with much credit – but do please read it. It will make you think about the blurry line between victims and villains, the nature of dependency, whether on people or chemicals, and much more besides.

Right, I’m off to take some happy pills…

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