Burning Leaves by Don Bannister: book review

In Burning Leaves (1982) Don Bannister explores the aftermath of a suicide.

Paul Killock is a history lecturer in an English university, living on the campus in a place where rows of semi-detached houses all look the same. He is passionate about his work, but it’s driving him crazy; the constant arguing, politicking, the tyranny of authority – and “my work made small by the bloody university.” Other lecturers are tired of Paul’s “histrionics” and tantrums. So is his wife, Wendy: “every time you have one of these dramatic scenes you do a grand exit. You don’t stay and face the music … You make a fool of yourself and I get the mockery.”

More and more, Paul isolates himself from everyone else; he feels imprisoned. He writes suicide notes: to the police, to the coroner’s office, and to his wife. Everything is in order, everything explained. But it didn’t work; the ambulance arrived in time to save him. He thought of Lazarus, in history, “being embarrassed and tongue-tied after they raised him from the dead.” He was sent to a psychiatric institution for therapy. But will therapy for eight weeks in The Poplars heal the anger, the frustration, the desperation, the frailty, and the emptiness he feels?

There were things he liked about The Poplars: the daily routine, his visit to the library to choose a novel, his afternoon walk, and going to the local cinema or watching television in the evening. But outside The Poplars, things were different, and not in a positive way.

Bannister’s work is as funny, sad, pathetic, horrible, frustrating, gloomy, disturbing, and confusing as a person’s mind is when it tries to understand the break down and the rebuilding of their own sense of self – and how a person begins to reintegrate into society. Bannister attempts to delve into the psychology of the mind, and though 30 years have passed, there are some intriguing insights and internal dialogues as Paul “sorts himself out.”