All the Things We Never Knew: Chasing the Chaos of Mental Illness, by Sheila Hamilton. Seal, 2015

Newswoman Sheila Hamilton didn’t know David Krol all that well when they married- they were married and she was pregnant within a year of meeting- but many couples commit to each other that rapidly. So it’s not like she knew nothing about him when she committed her life to his. And it was several years into the marriage before she realized David had something wrong with him. She felt he had quirks, but she trusted him. He was running his construction business while she was doing first TV and then radio news and they had a young child; she didn’t have time to dwell on his mental oddness until it got bad. And even when things go bad, she still didn’t think of it in terms of mental illness; she thought he was just being a jackass. His family made no mention of mental illness (even though Sheila was to find out that other family members had issues, too).

The book follows David and Sheila’s relationship from happy newlyweds to strangers living in the same house, ready to divorce. During that time, David ran up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, didn’t do necessary business paperwork, didn’t finish jobs which meant the homeowners refused any payment, and was unfaithful. Through it all, though, he remained devoted to their daughter, who was nine when David killed himself. He tried hard- although he failed most of the time- to be a good father to her.

That David was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder and that he committed suicide is no secret; it’s right on the book cover. Despite knowing this, I read the story tensely and breathlessly; I couldn’t avoid hoping for a happy ending even though I knew better. Hamilton’s writing drew me in and made me feel what she felt during this horror story. An amazing book. 

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Goldcord Asylum, by Jude Starling.

Set in northwest England in the year 1866, this heartbreaking novel is of a woman put into a mental institution by her husband- a husband she never wanted. Ivy Squire, nee Greenlake (having to change her name was an irritation to her) was married by her parents to Benjamin Squire as a social and economic move; Squire’s mother, who made the match, only wanted someone decorative and fertile. Ivy was not consulted at all- not at all unusual for that time. Ivy, an avid reader and devoted to her invalid sister, had no interest in leaving home. But her odd ways had always been an embarrassment to her mother, and this marriage offer was a good arrangement in her eyes.

Sadly, her odd ways make her less than satisfactory to her new spouse and mother-in-law, and Ivy is revolted by her husband and his demands. When she finds secret ways to maintain some autonomy, her happiness proves short lived.

Ivy’s odd ways are simply Asperger’s syndrome, unheard of in the Victorian age. In our day, people with Asperger’s are just beginning to be accepted as normal (whatever that is); imagine how much worse it would have been back then, when every inconvenient female was considered to have a mental illness, as was every one who did not adhere closely to the prevailing way of life.

Problems at the institute make Ivy’s – and the other patient’s- situation worse. Enoch Gale, founder of Goldcord and Medical Superintendent, has secrets that would ruin him were they known. To add to Gale’s problems, the Commission in Lunacy, which oversees mental hospitals, is starting to frown on the fact that very few patients are released as cured. Dr. Ballard, new to Goldcord, and the new nurse, Tilly Swann, show promise of making humane changes, but can they do this before a panicked Gale destroys lives?

While told in the third person and weaving together the stories of Ivy, Ballard, Swann, Gale, and the Matron, Eugenia Harvey, the heart of the story is Ivy’s, told to Tilly Swann. Ivy comes through as a determined person who may not always make choices that everyone would but has to be admired for her strength, loving nature, and intellect. The characters all come to life on the page, but I felt I knew Ivy as a living, breathing person. A lot of research went into this book and the historical aspects are spot on. I very, very rarely do this, but I cried at the end of this story. I highly recommend this book. 


 
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The Devil in Silver, by Victor LaValle. Spiegel & Grau, 2012

 

Pepper, a guy who is a bit of a trouble maker but harmless is put into a psychiatric hospital even though he is not mentally ill. That’s bad enough, but there is a monster that roams the halls at night and kills inmates. Sounds like a cross between ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ and a Stephen King novel. That was enough to convince me to read it. I expected a creepy story; I did not expect a book about large themes that engaged the heart. But that is what this novel is.

Pepper is taken to the psychiatric ward of New Hyde, a grossly under funded New York city hospital, because he took a swing at three plainclothes policemen in the process of trying to scare off the stalker ex-husband of his neighbor. Because it’s the end of shift, and they won’t get paid overtime for doing paperwork, they dump him for a 72 hour psychiatric hold, which requires only a few minutes of their time. This by itself would be the stuff of a Kafka story, but things rapidly get much, much worse. Pretty soon Pepper has been drugged (Haldol, an antipsychotic, and lithium, a mood stabilizer, given without a diagnosis or even an indication of his needing them), put in restraints for days, given tranquilizers so heavy duty he has no recollection of time passed, and visited by the monster. New Hyde isn’t a place where patients get treatment. It’s a place where they are warehoused. Few walk out the door. Everyone is drugged into submission. If the drugs don’t take the spirit out of an inmate there, the boredom will- their sole source of entertainment is a single TV set. There are no activities and the food is nearly inedible. Things couldn’t get much worse, could they? Hold on to that thought.

A monstrous Minotaur stalks the halls at night. It’s real; the staff sees it, too. In the process of discovering its secret, Pepper will have to make his way through a labyrinth, without a ball of string to help him find his way back. Pepper will also have to learn a lot about himself and grow up, going from somewhat narcissistic doofus to a caring person who thinks of others. The story is as much about people, relationships, race, society, and cruelty as it is about horror.

The novel is gripping, although it has some oddities. The omniscient narrator frequently breaks the 4^th wall, speaking to the reader directly and inserting rants about society that I thought would have been better shown to us than hitting us over the head with them- in fact, the story itself pretty well shows them to us anyway. In a way, those interludes are amusing, but they do break the mood. The end left me with questions about how the revealed monster could have done the things it did. But these are minor quibbles; the book is an excellent blend of horror and literary fiction.