# A Cruel Madness

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/colin-thubron/a-cruel-madness/9780099437192

![A Cruel Madness](https://quivercdn.com/covers/vintage/colin-thubron/a-cruel-madness_978-00-9943-719-2.jpg?v=2026-04-22%2007%3A12%3A27)

- Book: [A Cruel Madness](https://www.bookquiver.com/colin-thubron/a-cruel-madness) ([A Cruel Madness.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/colin-thubron/a-cruel-madness.md))
- Authors: [Colin Thubron](https://www.bookquiver.com/colin-thubron)
- Publisher: Vintage
- ISBN: 978-00-9943-719-2
- Pages: 176
- Published: 2004-10-07
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: Softcover

## Description

When a part-time worker in a mental hospital meets his old girlfriend inside he is not sure at first is she is a patient. Their reunion is haunted and haunting, and from the memory of their past affair there unfolds a labyrinth which darkens from romantic obsession to feelings deeper and more disturbing. Colin Thubron creates a world of passion, delusion, and reality mingling with unreality, pervaded by an all-consuming sense of longing and of loss.