'The story is fictional, the drug is real'
595925
4.5 stars

Judith Barrow wrote this book to bring attention to the trauma sufferered by the victims of the drug Diethylstilboestrol (DES), given to women between the years 1949 and 1971.  It was prescribed to prevent miscarriage, but had a devastating effect on the daughters - and possibly the granddaughters - of the women who took it, meaning that they had miscarriages, too, cancers of the reproductive organs usually associated with older women, and other problems to do with that part of the body.  Unlike with Thalidomide there has been very little publicity about it, and the women who campaigned for what they had been through and why to be recognised, faced many brick walls.

I think writing a novel about it is such a good way of letting people know about the ongoing tragedy; I would not read an article about it, but I read this.  Silent Trauma follows the lives of four women affected by the drug, and the friendship that forms between them: Meg, whose daughter Lisa took her own life; Rachel, whose husband left her because of the change in their marriage due to her depression caused by several miscarriages; Avril, a recluse whose life was shattered by cancer in her teens; and Jackie, caught in a difficult and violent relationship with a woman, herself a product of a difficult upbringing.

Aside from the main purpose of the book, I enjoyed reading about the four women very much; it's a well written, well planned story.  The characterisation is terrific, and the situations so real.  I've read Judith Barrow's nostalgia orientated, warts and all family sagas set in the north of England during the 40s, 50s and 60s, but actually liked this more.  I read it in one sitting.  Speaking as one who has never had the urge to have children I cannot imagine how it must feel to want them so badly that you feel like less than a woman if you can't reproduce, but all the emotions were painted so vividly that I felt everything the characters went through, and the situations were met with great understanding and sensitivity.

Jolly well done :)
4099253
Based on a true story, but don't get it twisted, it is a movie, not a documentary.
1411023
It is a novel that once you start reading it, you cannot put it down.  It is evident the research the author did to make fiction seem like reality.  It was our choice for our book club meeting last month.
4361813
It would be impossible for a filmmaker to condense "what really happened" to any political prisoner into a movie. Most "inspired by real events" movies of this nature are brought to the public awareness in documentary format because articulating a dramatic pace that keeps the audience engaged is tough. (Because in the land of "selling a feature film to the film market" suddenly your true story has to compete for sales next to fiction narratives where they have no limits.) In my opinion, THAT is the most impressive thing Jon Stewart managed to pull off with this story.  I gave the movie 5 Stars because of the dramatic pacing of the story, the believability of the cast...

...in under 2 hours I caught a small fictionalized glimpse of the madness of what really happen to Maziar Bahari that I could feel, like a roller coaster that pretends to go off a cliff but eventually delivers me safely back to the starting point, this story has the right amount of impact. Stewart really pays homage to this incident by writing and directing this movie personally instead of hiring "seasoned storytellers" to make the movie, that took more courage than most people can possibly imagine.
606582
A pretty good story that would educate US citizens about the alleged war on drugs
328672
I was told this was a true story but surely, if so, it was fictionalized, right? No one could be this diabolical ... could he?
4087117
This book, written by a well-trained British psychiatrist,Joanna Moncrieff, tells the true story of how anti-psychotic drugs were first developed and named "anti-psychotic" in the first place. She goes on to develop an argument about the drug-centered model of psychopharmceuticals and the disease-centered model, which is the one prevalent today that claims psycho-active drugs treat real symptoms and illnesses by actual drug mechanisms. Moncrieff disputes this, shows that the research has never borne this out as fact, and claims that many drugs were developed with very little oversight or research at all, and much more marketing than anything at all.

This is not to say that Moncrieff does not use anti-psychotic drugs in her practice. She says she does, when necessary. She is open-minded and doesn't want people with active psychosis to suffer. But she is dubious about the effects and the research and the longterm effects especially.

This is an eye-opening book, especially for anyone who has never read this sort of argument before.

I want to add that i have been diagnosed with schizophrenia for decades and have taken nearly every " anti-psychotic" drug on the market from massive "state hospital" doses of chlorpromazine and thioridazine (enough of the latter to induce chorioretinopathy later on) to weekly "depot" injections of fluphenazine, to clozapine, which induced terrible side effects including agranucytosis, and then to olanzapine and metabolic syndrome (though for years i tolerated it because i believed it to be a miracle drug...).

No longer. I still take '2 weight neutral AP drugs, which i do not want to take but seem to need to avoid descending into a drug-'induced psychosis...so i take them every day but they do not keep me well enough to stay out of the hospital completely...so how well do any of the drugs work? Not well at all, if they do anything at all, which is dubious. My sense is that they induce just enough brain damage to force a person to keep taking them. That's all.
2507119
Fictional account but no question how the director and cast captured authentic feel of the story behind Escobar. I lived in Colombia during that time.
2616611
I like the way the story is told. It's like a behind the scenes look at what really goes on in fighting against the "war on drugs" and how it can destroy a community.
2631385
It's a journey of truth in fictional language, only those in real path of realization would be able to associate or accept the truth in the form of fiction.

If you accept the truth, you will realize reality.  "Om".
3588901
As everyone knows by now, many of the details of this story were completely fabricated by Frey. That being said, if taken as a work of fiction, it is an entertaining page turner. If this book had been labeled "based on a true story," I think it would have stood up to all of the criticisms and Frey would not have come out looking so bad.

This is a story of someone with a terrible past and nothing to live for. He somehow manages to find redemption and purpose in life while brazenly ignoring all of the advice given to him by the experts at rehab. If you are interested in taking a peek into the mind of an addict, this book is for you. If you are an addict looking for inspiration to stay sober, I recommend that you look elsewhere.
1377160
I liked the gritty true metaphors that the story unveiled about how its actually the mainstream society that is sick and its the drugs that are the solution.

They would never believe ya that we took this girl and pumped her head full of LSD for her own good
1010475
This is NOT a documentary, okay? It's the fictional story of an alien invasion presented in a pseudo-documentary form. I have no problem with that at all, as I rather enjoy the pseudo-documentary form of story telling as well as science fiction in general. I appreciate the fact that the film makers consulted scientific and military experts in the making of this production, as this makes the scenario more realistic than it otherwise might have been. But that doesn't change the fact that this is story-telling, not a presentation of actual or events highly likely in view of current events. Don't get me wrong. I like this little film, and I recommend it to anyone whose imagination soars high and wild. Even so, this is fiction, not fact, and we should be extremely careful about blurring the distinction between the two.
1987761
Yes, it's true - real live is often much more odd and weird than even the most outlandish fiction and so much more fun to read about these very complicated and wealthy people who lead such odd lives!!
3434417
I think it is the real story rather than what we were told by the New Media.  I do think people watch to much TV and the way Hollywood presents a story.
4442948
The, book while fictional, is written in such a way as being believable in its possibilities. It is a story that is very hard to put down. It captures the reader from the 1st sentence and doesn't let go till the last. I only gave it 4 stars because a few minor things were left hanging. The book is worth the money.
3033026
I always love reading about real people, and this is as real as it gets. David's life spirals downward due to drugs, and I learned a a great deal about how an addict thinks and reacts. Not having experience with drugs myself, it was sort of fascinating to read about his experiences. He is extremely honest, humble and objective in his analysis of his own circumstances. The best part of the book is how he plans to use his experience to help others!