In the 1930s, in the midst of an unprecedented economic depression, our unnamed heroine wakes up early. Nurses traverse the corridors, unlocking doors, coming and going. There are bars on the window. As we turn the initial pages, we learn that the woman has been living in a psychiatric asylum for seven years, having been admitted following the death of her brother in a car accident for which she blames her parents. She will not see them, and she continually asserts that she, too, has died. Death, depression, and asylum in all varieties of meaning are the underpinnings of a novel about a woman's escape from a mental hospital and the year that follows.
Prior to the woman's escape, the reader peers into her asylum life, where she undergoes analysis and passes time among patients more far gone than herself. She briefly befriends a nurse who may or may not have abetted her flight by leaving the ward unlocked one evening. This is the beginning of a startlingly easy, and frankly unlikely series of events leading to the second part of the novel and the heroine's life in New York City. She manages to leave the grounds of the hospital, ride the rails of a train headed to a major metropolis, pawn her ring for enough money to live for a week, and then magically spend fewer than twenty-four homeless hours before meeting an implausibly charitable man who briefly takes pity on her before ultimately falling in love and asking her to be his wife in another week's time.
Our heroine, who has show more now assumed the name Harriet Demuth, refuses to be married on account of her mental instability, but leads the life of a housewife, cooking and cleaning and waiting for John, as he goes to his (also implausibly) steady job as a machinist working a lathe in a factory and organizing his fellow factory workers into a union by night. Harriet and John have it relatively easy compared to their friends, Anna and Al, and John's brother Jim. Arguably, any one of the secondary characters would have proven more compelling subjects of study than Harriet Demuth.
Do not, however, take my word for it. In the afterword, Peter Cameron reflects upon the novel's original reception and the early enthusiasm expressed for Millen Brand by the likes of Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, and Fannie Hurst. All of whom are far better writers and critics than this humble librarian. Yet even as someone who is fascinated by studies of boredom, sketches of everyday life, and unlikely female protagonists, this book simply failed to move me, and the conclusion of the novel, which I won't discuss here, was, frankly, distasteful. show less
Prior to the woman's escape, the reader peers into her asylum life, where she undergoes analysis and passes time among patients more far gone than herself. She briefly befriends a nurse who may or may not have abetted her flight by leaving the ward unlocked one evening. This is the beginning of a startlingly easy, and frankly unlikely series of events leading to the second part of the novel and the heroine's life in New York City. She manages to leave the grounds of the hospital, ride the rails of a train headed to a major metropolis, pawn her ring for enough money to live for a week, and then magically spend fewer than twenty-four homeless hours before meeting an implausibly charitable man who briefly takes pity on her before ultimately falling in love and asking her to be his wife in another week's time.
Our heroine, who has show more now assumed the name Harriet Demuth, refuses to be married on account of her mental instability, but leads the life of a housewife, cooking and cleaning and waiting for John, as he goes to his (also implausibly) steady job as a machinist working a lathe in a factory and organizing his fellow factory workers into a union by night. Harriet and John have it relatively easy compared to their friends, Anna and Al, and John's brother Jim. Arguably, any one of the secondary characters would have proven more compelling subjects of study than Harriet Demuth.
Do not, however, take my word for it. In the afterword, Peter Cameron reflects upon the novel's original reception and the early enthusiasm expressed for Millen Brand by the likes of Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, and Fannie Hurst. All of whom are far better writers and critics than this humble librarian. Yet even as someone who is fascinated by studies of boredom, sketches of everyday life, and unlikely female protagonists, this book simply failed to move me, and the conclusion of the novel, which I won't discuss here, was, frankly, distasteful. show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
I requested this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program because I am a woman in my 20's who has been dealing with migraines since early adolescence.
Dawn Marcus and Philip Bain approach the subject of migraine in connection with hormonal changes in women from childhood through menopause. I had been unaware of this relationship previously, but discovered that my personal experiences were consistent with those described in the book.
The authors describe a number of migraine management techniques included drug and non-drug therapies. They discuss the role of stress, sleep, and diet in triggering migraines, and provide a template for tracking your headaches and symptoms in a daily journal format. There are chapters devoted to migraine onset during adolescence, controlling migraine, alternative treatments during pregnancy and nursing, and tackling migraines during menopause. The book concludes with a guide to talking with your healthcare provider and a set of useful online resources and print publications that correspond with each section of the book.
The title implies a self-selecting readership, and I suspect that any woman who is attempting to manage disruptive migraine headaches would be interested in purchasing a copy. I will certainly keep mine on hand, and I would considering sending the book to my sister-in-law and a former roommate who also deal with frequent migraines.
The reason I only gave three stars to an otherwise useful resource is that the show more illustrations and "eye-catching artwork" did not enhance the text -- in fact, they were a distraction. Also, I found a few mistakes in which the diagrams contradicted the text (see p. 14, for example). Hopefully, these will be corrected between disseminating advance reading galleys and completing the final publication. show less
Dawn Marcus and Philip Bain approach the subject of migraine in connection with hormonal changes in women from childhood through menopause. I had been unaware of this relationship previously, but discovered that my personal experiences were consistent with those described in the book.
The authors describe a number of migraine management techniques included drug and non-drug therapies. They discuss the role of stress, sleep, and diet in triggering migraines, and provide a template for tracking your headaches and symptoms in a daily journal format. There are chapters devoted to migraine onset during adolescence, controlling migraine, alternative treatments during pregnancy and nursing, and tackling migraines during menopause. The book concludes with a guide to talking with your healthcare provider and a set of useful online resources and print publications that correspond with each section of the book.
The title implies a self-selecting readership, and I suspect that any woman who is attempting to manage disruptive migraine headaches would be interested in purchasing a copy. I will certainly keep mine on hand, and I would considering sending the book to my sister-in-law and a former roommate who also deal with frequent migraines.
The reason I only gave three stars to an otherwise useful resource is that the show more illustrations and "eye-catching artwork" did not enhance the text -- in fact, they were a distraction. Also, I found a few mistakes in which the diagrams contradicted the text (see p. 14, for example). Hopefully, these will be corrected between disseminating advance reading galleys and completing the final publication. show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.