Writing out prescriptions: hyper-realism and the chemical regulation of mood

Although many patients resist prescriptions for mood disorders and many doctors are open to alternative therapies, this paper explores the powerful ideological framework that normalises prescription dependency as part of everyday life in America and, arguably, Britain as well. Using a literary critical methodology, we read novels by American hyper-realists such as Bret Easton Ellis, David Foster Wallace, and Rick Moody as symptomatic of prescription culture. Though we argue that these writers brilliantly understand the dangers of mood-medication, they do not escape its logic, rather, writing it out at the same time they write against it. Indeed, we propose that their novels bear ironic similarities to medical texts such as The British National Formulary, usually seen as a neutral handbook for doctors guidance. We explicate their method as that of deconstruction, which, in contrast to more obvious critiques of chemical treatment, such as therapy, neither analyses nor cures. Though this method underplays the possibility of pragmatic resistance exemplified by alternative formularies such as the feminist health manual, Our Bodies, Ourselves, we argue that its very ambiguity uniquely exposes the complex determinisms associated with prescribed medication. We thus propose the value of introducing deconstructive literature to healthcare contexts