PTSD in Novels

[Dark Muse]

I do not know if there is much out there on this subject, as far as novels go. I did some looking online and I found a few books that look promising, but I usually always get some interesting results here on Litnet, no matter how strange, obscure, or off the beaten path the subject might be. It is always a good way to discover books which may not be so widely known.

I am interested in novels that deal with the topic of PTSD and/or feature a character who struggles with disorder.

[ChicagoReader]

The Yellow Birds is a really good first novel from an Iraq war veteran who studied poetry at the Michener Center. Perhaps a bit overwritten but a great first book in my opinion.

Redundant much? Haha

[Dark Muse]

Sounds interesting most of the books I was able to find online dealing with the subject were based in the Vietnam war, and while they sounded interesting, I would love to read something that is more current.

[Barnackian]

Read Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. Be careful though; you too might suffer from PTSD after reading such terrible prose.

[Dark Muse]

I have actually read that one. While it was not one of my favorites, I thought it did have its interesting points.

[Nick Capozzoli]

It figures in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell To Arms, though it wasn't identified as PTSD back then.

[kev67]

A Month in the Country by J. Carr possibly. That was set after the First World War about someone suffering from shell shock, which I am not sure is quite the same as PTSD.

[mona amon]

^ Count me among the ones who do not know the difference between post traumatic stress disorder and shell shock, but if there's not much difference, then Catch 22 is a good one.

[Dark Muse]

Shell Shock was the term for PTSD before it was known as PTSD. The main difference is that Shell Shock is specific for experiences at war. It was a phrase created to describe the aftermath faced by many soldiers. While PTSD can be caused by a variety of different traumatic experiences, and is not only to the mental trauma suffered from war.

[kev67]

I had the impression that shell shock was a condition that made you such a nervous wreck that it was impossible to continue fighting. I imagined PTSD to be slightly different, in that you may be able to continue fighting but that you might start drinking heavily or behaving recklessly. I wonder if that was the condition described by the word fey, which so far I have only come across in J.R.R. Tolkein's Silmarillion. Even after returning home, you might suffer mood swings, beat your wife, have bad nightmares and that sort of thing. When I read about WWI war aces, many of the pilots seemed to suffer from something like PTSD in that, although they continued to strap in and take off, they had started to drink heavily. Although not a novel, Spike Milligan (British comedian most famous during the 60s) describes suffering from shell shock in his war diaries. The experience may have had a permanent effect as he was often clinically depressed.

[bookowskee]

Maybe Catcher in the Rye and Kiss Me, Judas (to name a few).

[Dark Muse]

I had the impression that shell shock was a condition that made you such a nervous wreck that it was impossible to continue fighting. I imagined PTSD to be slightly different, in that you may be able to continue fighting but that you might start drinking heavily or behaving recklessly. I wonder if that was the condition described by the word fey, which so far I have only come across in J.R.R. Tolkein's Silmarillion. Even after returning home, you might suffer mood swings, beat your wife, have bad nightmares and that sort of thing. When I read about WWI war aces, many of the pilots seemed to suffer from something like PTSD in that, although they continued to strap in and take off, they had started to drink heavily. Although not a novel, Spike Milligan (British comedian most famous during the 60s) describes suffering from shell shock in his war diaries. The experience may have had a permanent effect as he was often clinically depressed.


Most commonly PTSD is a condition that occurs after one has returned from fighting and are trying to readapt to civilian life and reenter society again. I suppose it is possible for one to develop PTSD while they are still actively fighting, but usually it is associated with returning soldiers. It is a condition that is marked by intense nightmares, extreme flashbacks, in some cases a person might in might forget where they are and imagine they are still back in that situation of war, which can case them to pose a danger to themselves and others. It can also cause depression, and suicidal thoughts as well as lead to drinking, or sometimes other drug as a way to try to escape the nightmares and memories.

In the early 1900's the term Shell Shock was coined to describe soldiers who were involuntary crying, shivering, fearful and had intrusive memories. So Shell Shock was an early forerunner for PTSD, though there may be some difference between the two, particularly with our greater understanding of PTSD. The term Shell Shock was an attempt to try to explain a psychological experience created by war, which was not really understood at the time.

The other difference is that, today Shell Shock is not considered or used as a psychological term, while PTSD is.

[kev67]

Battle fatigue was another term that was used, but I don't know if that was ever a clinical term.

[JBI]

Much of early Hemingway, my favorite being In Our Time. Also Mrs. Dalloway by Woolf.

[JBI]

Shell Shock was the term for PTSD before it was known as PTSD. The main difference is that Shell Shock is specific for experiences at war. It was a phrase created to describe the aftermath faced by many soldiers. While PTSD can be caused by a variety of different traumatic experiences, and is not only to the mental trauma suffered from war.

There was a term before that called hysteria, used specifically for women. The transfer from hysteria to shell shock is said to have come from better psychological witnessing of the effects of the First World War. Before then it was generally regarded as being a female ailment, from all sorts of reasons, generally leading back to physical and sexual abuse carried out toward women, and a general lack of understanding of female psychology (including biology). Freud's original research actually linked hysteria specifically to women sufferers of sexual abuse, later he, I would assume because of the bad reaction to the work, or maybe because he went off his rocker, changed his quite accurate statement to "because she wishes she had a penis".

[Dark Muse]

Much of early Hemingway, my favorite being In Our Time. Also Mrs. Dalloway by Woolf.

Oh yes, I love Hemingway, I had thought of him when considering this subject, but I have not yet read In Our Time. I will have to look into that one.

[Seasider]

The Regeneration Trilogy is a series of 3 novels set in and after WWW1, written by Pat Barker 1. Regeneration 2 Eye in the Door. 3The Ghost Road. An excellent study with one of its characters John Pitt Rivers who treated Siegfried Sassoon and others for mental problems brought on by the fighting.