Goodreads asked Jane Harrigan:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Jane Harrigan My forthcoming novel, 'The Unravelling', which is a piece of literary fiction, has the theme of two minds unravelling, one with mental illness and one with dementia. It tells the story of Stella, the carer, and shows how her family disintegrates under the pressure with betrayal, guilt and grief (It's not all gloom, it has a happy ending!). The idea for this book came from the fact that, although books sometimes include a suicide in the plot, they very rarely have a main character who suffers from a diagnosed mental illness. I wanted to use the book to graphically illustrate what it's like to suffer from a serious mental illness and drew on my own experience as a sufferer of bi-polar and psychosis to do this. I also felt that dementia is under-represented in fiction, even though, like mental illness, it is such an important issue in our society. Again, I drew heavily on my own seven year experience of watching my mother slowly fade and die of dementia. I hope, that in addition to having a riveting plot and being a good read, the book might help provide insights to families trying to manage either types of mental distress.

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