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Interviews | October 21, 2009

Jill Owens: IMG The Powells.com Interview with Sam Savage

2 comments By Jill Owens

samsavageSam Savage's first novel, Firmin, chronicled the coming-of-age misadventures of a very literate rat living in a bookstore in Boston's Scollay Square. Garnering praise from authors and... Continue »
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Girl, Interrupted

by Susanna Kaysen

Girl, Interrupted Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

In 1967, after a session with a psychiatrist she'd never seen before, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital.  She spent most of the next two years on the ward for teenage girls in a psychiatric hospital as renowned for its famous clientele--Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor, and Ray Charles--as for its progressive methods of treating those who could afford its sanctuary.

Kaysen's memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers. It is a brilliant evocation of a "parallel universe" set within the kaleidoscopically shifting landscape of the late sixties. Girl, Interrupted is a clear-sighted, unflinching documnet that gives lasting and specific dimension to our definitions of sane and insane, mental illness and recovery.

Review:

"Poignant, honest and triumphantly funny. . . [a] compelling and heartbreaking story." --Susan Cheever, The New York Times Book Review

Review:

"[A]n account of a disturbed girl's unwilling passage into womanhood...and here is the girl, looking into our faces with urgent eyes."-Diane Middlebrook, Washington Post Book World
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About the Author

Susanna Kaysen is also the author of the novels Asa, As I Knew Him and Far Afield. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 5 comments:
cbrech, July 22, 2009 (view all comments by cbrech)
Hey, you should read this article about Amy Malloy, it is SO funny.

http://tinyurl.com/l92cqj
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leelerbaby, February 23, 2008 (view all comments by leelerbaby)
Straight forward account of a girl's stay in a mental institution. She places no blame or passes any judgements, just recalls the experience as she remembers it . In the end your left wondering whether she needed or even benefited from being placed there or if it was all the result of a doctor overreacting to symptoms that most teenagers at that time were going through.
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Eilonwy, January 6, 2008 (view all comments by Eilonwy)
This memoir is lucidly written and holds far more profound interest than a mere peek into a mental institution. Kaysen's story is told in short and focused chapters, almost stand-alone essays, easy to devour. The book raises questions not only about the biases and assumptions present in our society's mental health industry, but about the entire concept of 'sane' and 'insane'.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780679746041
Author:
Kaysen, Susanna
Publisher:
Vintage Books USA
Location:
New York :
Subject:
Biography
Subject:
Women
Subject:
Mental Illness
Subject:
Mentally ill
Subject:
Specific Groups - Special Needs
Subject:
Autobiography
Subject:
Mental Disorders
Subject:
Mentally ill children
Subject:
Psychiatric hospital patients
Subject:
Commitment of mentally ill.
Subject:
Psychiatric hospital patients -- Massachusetts -- Biography.
Subject:
Massachusetts
Subject:
Mental health
Subject:
Kaysen, Susanna - Mental health
Subject:
Psychiatric hospital patients - Massachusetts
Copyright:
1994
Edition Description:
1st Vintage Books ed.
Series Volume:
74
Publication Date:
January 1994
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Yes
Pages:
192
Dimensions:
802x524x52 45
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