Killing Hapless Ally

by Dr Anna Vaught

When she was little Alison invented an alter ego called Hapless Ally to present a different, more palatable version of herself to her family and to the world beyond. Over time however, the alter ego began to develop autonomy. Alison deals with this helped by a varied catalogue of imaginary friends.

Increasingly however she is weighed down by fear, confusion, and breakdowns. Alison realises she will have to take drastic action to survive and prevail. But, would she kill for it? Now that is an interesting question.

Genres: Fiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published March 3, 2016

About the author

Hello everyone,
A busy year.

My linktree is below so you can come and see me wherever and be aware of a new book or event.

I'm the author of ten, soon to be eleven books, but this is only part of what I do. I'm an English teacher at secondary level, a Creative Writing mentor and occasional lecturer,campaigner and activist. In addition to books, my work is widely anthologised, and I write features, columns, reviews and articles for literary and industry texts and for the national press, with particular interest in literature (and industry) and wellbeing.

Me next book is out on the 10th of February, a really chilling little novella. Then in March, my memoir These Envoys of Beauty is being republished - a new home! - and in October, The Elixir, second in my teaching series, is published.

More soon. Do be aware that there has been some hacking on this account and we are trying to sort it out; there are also some books listed which are not mine, but AI texts someone has given my name to. Just be aware that this is a problem for people.

Very best wishes for all your reading and, if you write, your writing too.
Anna x

Reviews

[Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an awe-inspiring book, in so many ways.

I'm in awe of how Alison fights her battles (with such dark comedy) and defeats her demons (in her own good time). I cheered her on and laughed out loud throughout the book.

I'm also in awe of how Anna Vaught writes with clarity and humour about the tricky subject of mental health and depression. It's very insightful!

You should read this, it will make you laugh and make you cry and give you a whole new perspective on what life can be like for other people.

[Laura Wyles]

This is a gem of a book. As it is about mental health issues I was a bit unsure about wither I would enjoy it or not.But I did and couldn't put it down .It skillfully balances more serious issues with humour which is difficult to do. I would recommend that everyone should read it.

[Karen Mace · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the September pick for the Ninja Book Box Book Club.

I didn't know very much about this book when I started it, but found it to be a unique and interesting look at the issues of mental health, which is extremely relevant nowadays. It's a black comedy that deals with depression and breakdowns - and how that affects a woman as she tries to understand who she is and her roles in life.

Alison narrates the story looking back over her life and this is a very clever way of letting you see just how her mental health issues have progressed and how they manifested themselves over various times in her life. From childhood where she is a much unloved child, through school times, the teenage years, marriage and motherhood, it's an often frantic account of all that she faced and how her alter ego 'hapless ally' along with numerous imaginary friends, helped her cope with and deal with many situations. And many of those situations aren't pleasant so it's often a tough read hearing what she has been subjected to and her response to those times. You sometimes feel like you can't take a breath as it's written in such breakneck speed, but I think it was written in this manner to show just how out of control the thoughts and feelings she was going through made her feel and made her live her life at a million miles an hour.

As she tries to seek help for her issues, she is forced to confront many difficult times and try to see if she can finally work out who she is and how the actions of others were so critical in the mental wellbeing of herself, and how often she saw lots but ended up missing more.

This was a funny, bittersweet, dark and fascinating look at the effect that mental health can play on someone in its' many forms and I enjoyed it from that aspect.

[Anne Goodwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alison’s mother is considered a pillar of the community by her neighbours, but she physically and verbally abuses her daughter, telling her she should have been left at the hospital in a bucket. Her father is more distant, but equally vile on the rare occasions Alison manages to spend time with him. Her much older brother is also cruel, encouraging her friends to laugh at her and making her ashamed of her body as adolescence shifts its shape. Alison loves them all because, apart from an aunt who dies too young, and another who’s unstable, she’s no-one else.

No-one else until she discovers Hapless Ally, a more palatable alter ego, a false self to hide behind. And then there’s Frida from Abba to raise her spirits when she’s down, and a whole host of other imaginary friends, mostly from the worlds of literature and entertainment, she collects over the years.

Full review
Women who contain multitudes: Freshwater & Killing Hapless Ally https://annegoodwin.weebly.com/1/post...

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5) Mixed feelings about this one really. On the one hand, this was a fabulously light look at a very heavy subject (mental health), while on the other I was irked by the scattershot writing style more than once even though this was clearly part of the protagonists persona.

On the whole, however, this was a pretty original, insightful read and I ended up racing through the final third, I just wish I could've loved Alison a little bit more earlier on.

[Jackie Law · Rating 4 out of 5]

Killing Hapless Ally, by Anna Vaught, is a fictional memoir exploring mental illness and how the protagonist, Alison, learns to cope with her life through the creation of an alter ego and a host of imaginary friends. It is brutally frank, painful in places, but also darkly funny. Despite the suicide attempts and self harm, Alison is trying to find a way to survive in a world that she believes perceives her as a nuisance and a misfit.

As a child Alison always felt rejected. Her mother, Maria, told her she had not been wanted, that she should have been left at the hospital in a bucket. If she had to have a daughter Maria wished her to be a graceful, slender and beautiful little girl. Alison was plump, clumsy and struggled to stay clean. Her middle class parents were well regarded by their local community. All treated Alison with contempt.

Hapless Ally was the personality Alison thought would be more acceptable to her family and peers, an alter ego created as a shield against the verbal and physical onslaughts she endured. As well as hiding behind Ally in public, Alison developed obsessive routines and a shocking vocabulary. Only in private could she be her true self, confiding in a series of invented friends drawn from music and books.

The story explores snapshots of Alison’s life from as far back as she can remember – visits to relatives; attempts at ballet, music lessons and brownies; school and then university; caravan holidays with her parents. All are seen through the eyes of a deeply unhappy girl desperate to find acceptance.

As an adult Alison comes to realise that she is living her life with the soundtrack of her mother’s scathing criticism always in her head. She seeks help, but fears that she will not be able to cope without the strategies she has relied on for decades. She marries and has children, but then suffers a severe mental breakdown. Hapless Ally is conspiring with her dead mother and an exorcism is required.

The writing is intense, sometimes rambling, always coherent. The disjointedness can make for challenging reading but is effective at conveying the fragmentation of memory, especially from childhood, the overlap of sensation with events. It is fascinating and somewhat disturbing to look at adult behaviour through young Alison’s eyes, to see what a child absorbs and the impact of circumstance.

The story has been drawn from the author’s own experience of mental health issues. The authenticity this brings makes it a somewhat disquieting read. Although not an easy subject to explore mental illness deserves wider discussion. This book does not attempt to offer easy answers, but it generates important questions.

My copy of this book was provided gratis by the publisher, Patrician Press.

[Lucy Weston · Rating 5 out of 5]

A breath of fresh air, this beautifully written novel tackles mental health issues with eloquence, excellent story telling, and humour.

Anna Vaught has a brilliant visual way of writing in a style that reminds me of a Dylan Thomas poem. I could really picture the array of characters in Alison's life and their settings, which, along with recounts of childhood experiences, were brought to life in a wonderfully humorous way. I immediately warmed to Alison and wanted to go back in time to give her a hug and be her friend. While I spent most of the novel feeling really cross with Santa Maria for the way she treated Alison, I could see a vulnerability in her character through Vaught's empathic way of describing Alison's mother's own insecurities being behind her seemingly uncaring behaviour towards her daughter, instead putting all her energies in to her community do gooding. Amongst the family members who picked away at Alison's sense of self worth was a beacon of hope, her godmother Helen who despite only being around for a short part of her life, nonetheless was an essential influence for the love and support she gave to her niece. I really enjoyed meeting the wonderful range of imaginary friends brought to life by Alison and described so well by Vaught.

Personally I found this book very therapeutic and beneficial, following Alison on her journey to recovery and being able to stand alone without Hapless Ally and her mother's voice. I felt proud of Alison for pulling through, and wanted to cheer from the rooftops when she met the fabulous Dixie Delicious, who helped her truly be her and showed her love, supporting her in her recovery. A real tear jerking moment for me in the book was when Alison's friends all pulled together for her in her hour of need, from pushing lemon drizzle cake through the open window to looking after the baby and taking her under their wing. I think this particularly moved me as it seemed to be the first time, at least that Alison was able to remember, since meeting Dixie Delicious, that she realised she was truly loved and valued. I found that Alison helped me forgive her mother by showing how she forgave her herself, and I loved the method of "disposing of" the negative forces in her life (out of the window).

Alison shows us that, no matter what we have been through, if it has had an impact on our mental health, there is help out there and ways to get better.

[Susan Case · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anna Vaught’s debut novel takes us on the helter-skelter ride that is the making of Alison, a seemingly ordinary girl, growing up in ordinary village in an unsuspected, undetected ordinary family. The book spins in ever-increasing circles, starting with the very young Alison, clever, loving and seeking to be lovable, struggling to make sense of the chronic pain she feels from believing she causes others’ pain. That struggle, delivered with humour, much literary wit and visceral determination, forms the book.
Vaught gives us much more than a glimpse into the world of mental illness; how it festers in the least suspected settings, how it can taint even the most brilliant, funny and promising minds and how much strength, inward and outward, is needed for recovery. Through Alison’s misadventures we laugh, often, as she shares with us her many heroes, both imaginary and real, and are prompted to consider the ordinary heroes in our own lives. For Alison’s heroes are the thread which pulls her story together: the sexy poets and popstars, the mums bearing lemon drizzles and cleaning products, the NHS angels who wear expensive-casual to work in vomit-coloured rooms.

Alison declares, after recalling her grandfather’s recitations that ‘…here’s the thing: words can heal. They can make you soar, whether read or heard. And you cannot take them away once brought into the world. Sometimes, they are good even if a bad person said them: because the words can exist independently of the mouth that uttered them or the horrid geography that spawned them. It is magic.'
Indeed, it is.

[Sophie Langley · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are so many books out there, so many tales to tell and yet this book is a rare find. As you turn each page of Killing Hapless Ally, you start to understand why. It takes more than a good story to make a great book and the author's use of language, her ability to interlace harrowing with humour and extract strength from despair, is nothing short of extraordinary. With black humour and crafted language, you are transported to an emotionally harrowing childhood in Wales, introduced to Ally and the characters she created in a bid to control a world that that could make no sense to an innocent child. Adolescence sees a whole new set of challenges and its an extraordinary writing ability that makes you laugh, cry and shake your head with incredulity. With lusty shenanigans afoot in France, you accompany Ally in the f**cking caravan and shudder as she experiences her first orgasm.
There are few books that really stand out for me. As a small child, televisions were banned and I was raised with the likes of Dickens, the Brontes, classical poetry and oddly, Pam Ayre. As an adult, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabrielle Garcia Marquez stills stands out as a tale that is all consuming on every page, with no need for superfluous cliff hangers. The Killing of Hapless Ally combines the beauty of language, the skill of a gifted writer and a story so realistic that it is almost unbelievable. When you throw in sex, death, self harm, suicide attempts and the ability of the human mind to survive, this becomes a book that you simply have to read. A rare find indeed.

[Mike Osborn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was worth reading. It is a powerful book that gives you a peek behind the mask into a private struggle, a concealed personal experience of being someone who lives with overwhelming levels of shame and self-contempt. We use these terms a lot but in this case it is a military grade phenomenon with significant consequences. So what happens when some-one is really unwanted, really unloved and learns to assume that if some-one else knew them, they would hurt them, reject them. This is what Alison has to live with and this is her story. How she manages to survive and how when the real world becomes unbearable, there are other places to go with other people in them. It's a demanding book, not an easy read and you have to concentrate, but it's worth it. The content can be upsetting, the madness difficult to keep up with, but that's the point. I've read loads of accounts of this kind of thing, but rarely is the author up to the task of telling a good story and keeping it up through the whole book. Anna Vaught, the author, is bold and honest. She respects the reader and doesn't try to protect you so at times you have to put the book down and take a break, but not for long as it is a page turner and you want to know how it turns out. It's not easy to live with this kind of stuff, the professional help has it's limits and it's a test, but you come away from the book with hope and a belief that although some people can be cruel, not everyone is and sustained kindness can really help.

[Deborah Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book. It's not one that readers of 'chick lit' will take to easily. Nothing is spoon fed to the reader. And yet it is expertly written by someone who not only knows their craft, but enjoys it as well.

The author has a habit of placing powerfully upsetting lines, lines that make you want to physically jerk when you read them, in the middle of laugh-out-loud funny scenes. The effect is powerful, making the both the humour and the shock support each other with a sort of literary alchemy few writers can achieve.

I feel like the central character Allison is, if not a friend, someone I know inside out now. The book will bear re-reading (several times over I expect) so I am looking forward to meeting her again.

[Turquoisetomato · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Killing Hapless Ally’ is an intriguing and powerful novel which explores one woman’s quest for freedom from the overpowering clutches of depression and dislocation. With dark humour, sprightly wit and insight the author follows Alison’s twisting and often frightening path towards positive mental wellbeing and a release from fear and self-loathing. The book is both touching and savage and is imbued with exquisite description throughout. I think this story will appeal to many people; it is definitely a ‘page turner’ and one which will make you laugh (a lot) and cry. I greatly enjoyed reading it and will definitely be recommending it to my friends….

[Sarah Howe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just what you want from a 'Goodread' - utterly absorbing, un-putdownable, hilarious and shocking; Killing Hapless Ally deals with mental health issues brought on, in part, with the formative childhood experience of emotional neglect and the havoc reeked, as a consequence, into adulthood. The alter ego Ally, presented to the world as a wayward coping mechanism masking the pain behind. However Alison, the voice here, is a joyous, delightful survivor and even in it's darkest moments this book sings with her delicious black wit and resilient inventive personality. A great read and highly recommended. Go Alison! X

[Val · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit muddled with this book, could not understand it.