Novels where the main character has a social phobia/anxiety

[wiggle]

Does anybody have anymore suggestions?

 

[hoop]

Would Andrews from Grahame Greene's The Man Within count? Regardless of the hair-splitting going on in this thread, I reckon anybody with those levels of pure guilt running through his blood at all times would qualify as somebody with some sort of anxiety problem.

 

[gilly@snowbooks]

The Miniature Man

Hello,
I saw your post and immediately thought of a fairly unknown title called 'The Miniature Man'. It's about a young man - a chess prodigy - who suddenly suffers from epilepsy that ruins his career. He's already an outsider because he's an albino and on the edge of society and is forced to go to a sanitorium to be treated.

His social anxieties arrive more from how people have treated him over the years - he is quite an unlikeable character at first as he's pompous, rude and nasty to others. It's only when he meets another patient (Marcy) who's got amnesia and has lost all her hair after a horrific attack, that he starts to form a bond and work out his problems and how they both might be able to cope in the real world.

Not sure if that sounds like it might be the type of thing you're looking for?

 

[Shelly]

Could try 'Redemption' by Wayne Sharrocks or 'Perfume' by Patrick Suskind as both their lead characters have been emotionally/socially damaged.

 

[Stewart]

Hello,
I saw your post and immediately thought of a fairly unknown title called 'The Miniature Man'. It's about ...bla bla bla...

gilly@snowbooks suggesting a book published by, of all publishers, SnowBooks. How sneaky.

 

[lady.cordelia]

I have an autistic cousin. It's not a phobia about social situations it's more a general aversion to external stimulation and new situations. I think with a phobia there is more thinking, fretting and worrying even when contemplating the situations for which the phobias exist. For an autistic child there is only reaction to the situation.

I hear ya' guys there is definitely anxiety but I have to take exception to the words rational and persistent. If you ask my cousin if he has a fear of people of social situations he won't really understand what your saying. In essence he dosen't know that he has a fear.

except for Asperger's syndrome, which is really a social phobia to the extreme, but is actually on the low end of the autism spectrum. with Asperger's, also, they do know they have the phobia. it sounds like your cousin has what i would deam classical autism - the original signs and symptoms of the original disorder. it has now become a huge spectrum with many variances from just sensory integration disorder to asperger's to classical autism and everything in between. they all manifest in different ways.

i can't think of any books, but you might enjoy a show called Monk. you can get it on dvd now and it is a lot of fun to watch. he is totally obsessive compulsive and has many social phobias, but is a brilliant detective and makes for an entertaining show.