Cover Reveal for THE RUBBER FENCE

I’m very excited to announce the cover reveal for The Rubber Fence, my second novel. The cover was designed by Ares Jun.

The story, which largely takes place on a psychiatric ward in 1972, was inspired by my work on such a hospital ward in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

I had just graduated with a Master of Social Work and was anxious to employ some of the techniques I had learned in my field placement at the University of Manitoba. My mentor was Professor Gerald Erickson, who had come to the Faculty of Social Work after spending ten years doing family therapy at a Wisconsin mental health centre.

I was a very enthusiastic student. Gung-ho to learn all that I could about family dynamics. It was a time when families were blamed for everything and I was anxious to not only examine my own but others as well.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the fact that electric shock treatment was still going strong on the ward where I worked as a psychiatric social worker. The ward had patients of all stripes: the psychotic, the depressed, and the alcoholic. They also ranged in age from their teens to their golden years.

At the time, family therapy was coming into its own and psychiatric interns were experimenting with the new techniques. I was fortunate enough as a psychiatric social worker to work alongside interns as a co-therapist. I also witnessed the top experts in the field demonstrating their theories and therapeutic strategies.

THE RUBBER FENCE was a labour of love.

Though THE RUBBER FENCE is fiction, I poured my heart and also my frustration over what I saw into this story. It was originally a screenplay, named Shrinkproof. I had agents in both Toronto and Vancouver who showed it to a number of Hollywood stars. Jody Foster’s agent loved it but Ms. Foster eventually passed on it. I suspect she did so because of what happens in this story. She was a new mother at the time, and there’s a new mother in my story, one who goes through her own private hell.

The novel is set in 1972.

It was a time when women were breaking out, families were breaking down, and men were trying to hold on for the ride.

Dr. Joanna Bereza is a psychiatric intern who wants to have it all: a career, a loving marriage, and a family, but her passion to do what’s right sets her against a system that’s as stuck as the people it treats.

On ward 2B, Joanna becomes obsessed with the treatment of two women―a mute young mother suspected of trying to kill her baby and a feisty old woman who’s been through the mill one too many times. Blinded by her obsession, Joanna not only neglects her own husband, but in trying to stop her patients from getting shock treatment, she also puts her career in jeopardy. Further complicating matters is the seductive senior resident who looks more like a hip rock star than an aspiring shrink.

Shadowing Joanna’s work is her own unresolved grief over something that happened when she was a child.

THE RUBBER FENCE, general fiction, 328 pages, will be released on March 3, 2016 as a paperback and e-book. Pre-orders for the e-book are available now on Amazon.

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