Lithium for Medea is as much a tale of addiction - to sex, drugs, and dysfunctional family chains - as it is one of mothers and daughters, their mutual rebellion and unconscious mimicry. Here is the story according to Rose - the daughter of a narcissistic, emotionally crippled mother and a father who shadowboxes with death in hospital corridors - as she slips deeply and dangerously into the lair of a cocaine-fed artist in the bohemian squalor of Venice. Lithium for Medea sears us with Rose’s breathless, fierce, visceral flight - like a drug that leaves one’s perceptions forever altered.

Stunning, sharply beautiful prose, fascinating characters and a hypnotic rhythm. The 326 pages are more poem than fiction.