Synopses & Reviews
The classic novel about a young womans struggle against madness, now a Holt Paperback, with a new afterword by the author
Hailed by The New York Times as "convincing and emotionally gripping" upon its publication in 1964, Joanne Greenbergs semiautobiographical novel stands as a timeless and unforgettable portrayal of mental illness. Enveloped in the dark inner kingdom of her schizophrenia, sixteen-year-old Deborah is haunted by private tormentors that isolate her from the outside world. With the reluctant and fearful consent of her parents, she enters a mental hospital where she will spend the next three years battling to regain her sanity with the help of a gifted psychiatrist. As Deborah struggles toward the possibility of the "normal" life she and her family hope for, the reader is inexorably drawn into her private suffering and deep determination to confront her demons.
A modern classic, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden remains every bit as poignant, gripping, and relevant today as when it was first published.
Review
“Convincing and emotionally gripping.”—The New York Times
“A rare and wonderful insight into the dark kingdom of the mind.”—Chicago Tribune
Review
“Convincing and emotionally gripping.”—The New York Times
“A rare and wonderful insight into the dark kingdom of the mind.”—Chicago Tribune
Review
Praise for 17 and Gone:
“This is ingeniously crafted."
—BCCB, starred review
“Suma writes beautifully, drawing readers into Laurens story and her psyche with painstaking care until the storys jolting conclusion.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A compelling, skillfully written page-turner.”
—Booklist
“An engrossing read."
—VOYA
“Sumas exquisite sentence-level writing and fine eye for creepy detail are in abundant evidence.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Elegant, riveting, powerful, and poignant, this suspenseful, supernatural tale slips under the skin, inking out a haunting tapestry of menace and madness. Nova Ren Suma is, quite simply, a masterful storyteller and one of my favorite writers.”
—Libba Bray, Printz Award winner and New York Times bestselling author of The Diviners and A Great and Terrible Beauty
“17 and Gone is a sharply compelling story of what happens when we stop seeing whats in front of us and start looking for whats already gone. Intricately plotted and surreally imagined... Suma breaks reality and twists it back together in a devastating and beautiful new form.”
—Kiersten White, New York Times bestselling author of Paranormalcy and Mind Games
Synopsis
Enveloped in the dark inner kingdom of her schizophrenia, sixteen-year-old Deborah is haunted by private tormentors that isolate her from the outside world. With the reluctant and fearful consent of her parents, she enters a mental hospital where she will spend the next three years battling to regain her sanity with the help of a gifted psychiatrist. As Deborah struggles toward the possibility of the “normal” life she and her family hope for, the reader is inexorably drawn into her private suffering and deep determination to confront her demons. A modern classic, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden remains every bit as poignant, gripping, and relevant today as when it was first published.
Synopsis
Joanne Greenbergs semi-autobiographical novel stands as a timeless and unforgettable portrayal of mental illness.
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
Enveloped in the dark inner kingdom of her schizophrenia, sixteen-year-old Deborah is haunted by private tormentors that isolate her from the outside world. With the reluctant and fearful consent of her parents, she enters a mental hospital where she will spend the next three years battling to regain her sanity with the help of a gifted psychiatrist. As Deborah struggles toward the possibility of the “normal” life she and her family hope for, the reader is inexorably drawn into her private suffering and deep determination to confront her demons. A modern classic, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden remains every bit as poignant, gripping, and relevant today as when it was first published.
“A rare and wonderful insight into the dark kingdom of the mind.”—Chicago Tribune
Synopsis
Seventeen-year-old Lauren is having visions of girls who have gone missing. And all these girls have just one thing in commonthey are 17 and gone without a trace. As Lauren struggles to shake these visions, impossible questions demand urgent answers: Why are the girls speaking to Lauren? How can she help them? And . . . is she next? Through Laurens search for clues, things begin to unravel, and when a brush with death lands Lauren in the hospital, a shocking truth changes everything.
With complexity and richness, Nova Ren Suma serves up a beautifully visual, fresh interpretation of what it means to be lost.
About the Author
Nova Ren Suma is the author of Imaginary Girls and Dani Noir, which was recently rereleased under the new title Fade Out. She has an MFA in fiction from Columbia University and lives in New York City.
Reading Group Guide
1. How do Esther and Jacob respond to Deborahs illness? What does the novels opening scene indicate about their different parenting approaches? 2. Discuss the nature of Deborahs imaginary world. What are the characteristics of Yr? What do the Collect and the Censor want? What rules does Deborah set for herself based on what they tell her? 3. In her afterword, the author writes, “Many psychiatrists with backgrounds in chemical therapies felt that schizophrenia—which had been my diagnosis—is incurable. … Statistically, of course, more than one-third of us do recover.” What was your initial reaction to Deborahs case file, appearing in chapter two? How optimistic were you about her prognosis? 4. What illusions do the novels “healthy” characters create for themselves? To what degree do Dr. Fried and Deborahs parents create their own imperfect realities? 5. Deborah experienced the pain of anti-Semitism throughout her childhood, and the shadow of Hitler is described in many of the novels passages, including in chapter twelve. To what extent did this history contribute to her illness? 6. Why are Deborah and Carla drawn to each other? How are their views of the world alike and different? Do they trust each other? 7. In chapter six, “upuru” is defined as “Yrs word for the whole memory and emotion of that last hospital day,” referring to the surgery Deborah experienced as a little girl. What could have been done to make the surgery less traumatic? How did it influence her perception of healers, and the promise of healing? 8. How does Deborah think of her body? In her mind, why is it necessary to hurt herself physically? What does suicide mean to her? 9. Discuss the culture of Deborahs mental hospital. How do the patients form alliances? How much power do they have? How much power do they think they have? Do its wards, hierarchies, rules, and rule breakers remind you of any other institutions (in politics, in corporate America, or elsewhere)? 10. What does Miss Corals instruction signify to Deborah? What is their understanding of the purpose of language? 11. The author notes in the afterword that when her novel was first published in the 1960s, “madness” was sometimes seen as a liberating, creative force. How did her work challenge this belief? How might Deborah have fared in the twenty-first century? 12. In chapter twenty-eight, Deborah tries to imagine her employment qualifications. What does this passage say about her state of mind at this point in her life? How has her self-perception changed since the beginning of the novel?