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  • Black Dog
    • Introduction
    • 1 Captive!
    • 2 Safe!
    • 3 Emergence
    • 4 Interlude
    • 5 Crash!
    • 6 Retreat
    • 7 Saviour
    • 8 Hope...
    • 9 Forgiveness?
    • 10 Recovery
  • Accidentally Poetic
    • Introduction
    • What's Wrong?
    • Portrait of a Man
    • Have I The Right?
    • Six Months from Solitude
    • One Isolated Incident
    • Life's Great
    • The Death Knell
  • The Worst Day
  • Another Day
  • No More Loneliness
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• Suicide
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The story behind the story

Black Dog, my first novel, was inspired by the knowledge that many young people are so deep in despair that they consider suicide. I've been there myself, and in writing the novel I have drawn on my own experience of depression to try to give the reader a new perspective, and through that, hope.

As a friend of mine puts it, “suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” I've been so low that the problems seem overwhelming—and suicide seems like an attractive answer. It's not. It's devastating for those left behind and it leaves many questions unanswered. To put it bluntly, suicide creates more problems than it solves.

Often, a sympathetic ear and an understanding heart are all that's needed to reassure a depressed person that they are special and loved. It's my hope that Black Dog might provide that ear and heart for someone who needs it.

Copyright and licensing

Black Dog is Copyright © 2008-2009 Alien Son, and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial- No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

To obtain a copy of this license, visit the Creative Commons website, or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

Black Dog

Michael is a typical teenager living in an Australian country town. He has a loving family and cool friends, and is doing well at school. Then he suffers a major trauma.

Black Dog is the story of Michael's journey inwards in the aftermath of this life-changing event.

Notes and Thanks

• "Black dog" is the name Sir Winston Churchill, Britain's prime minister during World War II, gave to his depression. Although this is probably the best-known use of the term, there is evidence that it didn't originate with Churchill. In ‘Black dog’ as a metaphor for depression: a brief history, Paul Foley examines the origins of the expression.
• This is a work of fiction. The people portrayed do not exist, and the events described did not take place. Any similarities between my characters and people you know are pure coincidence. The places and localities I've used are real, and pretty much as described.
• Family and friends helped immensely by critiquing my work. Many thanks to Tad; Penny and David; and Nikki.
• Thank you, too, to my family for their enthusiastic encouragement!
• The guys at The Mail Crew, whose site is no longer online, went out of their way to beta read every chapter of Black Dog. In addition Aaron and Rain offered many helpful editing suggestions. Thanks for all your help, guys!
• From chapter four, Black Dog was edited by Azyclar. My writing benefited greatly from his hard work. Thanks Azy!
• As well as at this site, Black Dog is hosted at Codey's World (thank you Ben, Tim and Colin), at Ted Louis (thank you Ted), and at AwesomeDude (thank you, Dude).
• Ronyx at The Mustard Jar has referred many readers here through a link on his links page. Thanks Ron!
• When I was starting out, online and print author the late Bobby Michaels very generously allowed me to publicise Black Dog in his Yahoo! group.

Copyright © 2008-2026 Alien Son. All rights reserved.