Girl, Interrupted – April 19, 1994

Girl, Interrupted Paperback – April 19, 1994

Author: Visit Amazon's Susanna Kaysen Page | Language: English | ISBN: 0679746048 | Format: PDF, EPUB

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Girl, Interrupted – April 19, 1994
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When reality got "too dense" for 18-year-old Susanna Kaysen, she was hospitalized. It was 1967, and reality was too dense for many people. But few who are labeled mad and locked up for refusing to stick to an agreed-upon reality possess Kaysen's lucidity in sorting out a maelstrom of contrary perceptions. Her observations about hospital life are deftly rendered; often darkly funny. Her clarity about the complex province of brain and mind, of neuro-chemical activity and something more, make this book of brief essays an exquisite challenge to conventional thinking about what is normal and what is deviant.

From Publishers Weekly

Kaysen's startling account of her two-year stay at a Boston psychiatric hospital 25 years ago was an eight-week PW bestseller.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: Vintage (April 19, 1994)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0679746048
ISBN-13: 978-0679746041
Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,320 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #34 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Authors
- #57 in Books > Medical Books > Psychology > General

This slim memoir of a college student who suffers a "breakdown" honestly explores the details of mental illness, specifically "borderline personality" disorders. The account starts in a cold, almost frightening way: the first page is a copy of author Kaysen's case record folder. The reader then is given a fleeting description of the quiet moments leading up to Kaysen's lengthy hospitalization, and then is shown more official documents. This juxtaposition of the clinical with the personal highlights exactly what this memoir aims to express, that the darkness of mental disease has a face, a voice, that can be hidden by labels and diagnoses.

Kaysen's difficult and often terrifying journey - from the ordinary daughter of two achieving parents to a patient at a psychiatric hospital to, tentatively, a recovered young woman - is at once moving and beautiful. Even when the author asks questions that many before her have asked, she makes them seem fresh: "What is it about meter and cadence and rhythm that makes their makers mad?" She explores her illness at its most intimate moments and often follows her breaks with reality with detached physician reports, giving the reader both inside and outside perspectives. Through her interactions with other patients, Kaysen makes it clear that not everyone is as fortunate as she, since some cannot extricate themselves from their illness. Interestingly, despite once not believing that she really had bones inside her, Kaysen is not convinced she was mentally ill; if nothing else, this questions the internal changes we've been taught to accept as part of the onset of mental illness.

This book should not be read by anyone believing she is slipping toward insanity, but it might be a comfort to those who have already emerged.

Susanna Kaysen checked herself into McLean Psychiatric Hospital when she was 18, in 1967. This book is about how her life was interrupted, the two years she spent at the hospital, the other girls on the ward, her keepers, and her psychiatrists. It shows you how someone with a "borderline personality" thinks, and how they act, without going into a lot of technical detail, just her own experiences. This book reminds me of The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, because of it's inside look of a teenager. The style of writing is also similar, yet it's not the same. The descriptive detail in both books is there throughout, but never excessive or boring. It keeps you reading until the end, and then wanting to know more.
One thing that stood out to me was the character description. It's most prominent in Susanna, the narrator, the main character. She shares her thoughts, whether or not they're important to other people, it's important to her, and she'll go into detail explaining it.
"Take a thought---anything; it doesn't matter. I'm tired of sitting here in front of the nursing station: a perfectly reasonable thought. Here's what velocity does to it. First, break down the sentence: "I'm tired"-well, are you really tired, exactly? Is that like sleepy? You have to check all your body parts for sleepiness, and while you're doing that, there's a bombardment of images of sleepiness, along these lines: head falling onto pillow, head hitting pillow, Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, Little Nemo rubbing sleep from his eyes, a sea monster. Uh-oh, a sea monster. If you're lucky, you can avoid the sea monster and stick with sleepiness."
This is probably my favorite quote from the book. Her thought process is so random, it's almost funny.