Girl Interrupted

In 1967, after an appointment with an unfamiliar psychiatrist, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was escorted to McLean Hospital by taxi. There, she resided in the psychiatric facility's ward for adolescent girls, where she spent the majority of the next two years. The hospital was renowned not only for its cutting-edge therapeutic techniques but also for its celebrity clientele, including the likes of Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor, and Ray Charles.

Kaysen's memoir depicts a world of terror and razor-sharp insight, offering poignant character sketches of her fellow patients and their caretakers. Against the rapidly shifting backdrop of the late 1960s, it delivers a powerful portrayal of a "parallel universe." Girl, Interrupted is a perceptive and unflinching account that sheds light on our conceptions of sanity and insanity, as well as on the nature of mental illness and recovery.