Spider is a novel by the British novelist Patrick McGrath, originally published in the United States in 1990. In the novel, a psychological thriller with an unreliable narrator, the protagonist wrestles with mental illness and trauma from his past. Spider, birth name Dennis Cleg, is a recent arrival from a psychiatric hospital to a halfway house in the East End of London—just a few streets away from the very house where he grew up, which was the scene of some barely visible but tremendous trauma that gradually emerges from the fog of Spider's reminiscences. As the story opens, Spider has just taken up residence in the halfway house, under the stern eye of Mrs. Wilkinson, along with a handful of others he calls "dead souls".
Adaptations (1)
Spider was adapted into a 2002 film.
Spider2002 · film · 98 min · dir. David Cronenberg · IMDb ↗A mentally disturbed man takes residence in a halfway house. His mind gradually slips back into the realm created by his illness, where he replays a key part of his childhood.
