Girl, Interrupted: A Memoir
30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • 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. Her memoir of the next two years is a "poignant, honest ... triumphantly funny ... and heartbreaking story" (The New York Times Book Review).
WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR
The ward for teenage girls in the McLean psychiatric hospital was 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 document that gives lasting and specific dimension to our definitions of sane and insane, mental illness and recovery.
WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR
The ward for teenage girls in the McLean psychiatric hospital was 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 document that gives lasting and specific dimension to our definitions of sane and insane, mental illness and recovery.
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Community Reviews
I did not enjoy this book. I felt that Susanna was absent from the book for a good portion of it, that she was just an observer in her life and experiences. Most of what she shared I felt were akin to the American Pie - You know this one time at band camp... jokes. I felt that Susanna as a person was absent for most of the book, and that we truly did not learn anything about her, her condition, or her inner turmoils till the end of the book. I was highly disappointed, definitely not what I expected.
A grim reflection on a girls experience psychiatric care from decades past. Somehow wildly unimaginable yet deeply relatable all at once.
I can’t believe I never got around to reading this in the past. Easily one of my favorite books I’ve read to date.
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