A novel dealing with historical treatment of the mentally ill, and its unsatisfactory end note.

Gloria Whelan.  The Locked Garden.  HarperCollins, 2009.  176 pages.  Age 9 to 12.  On sale June 2nd.

Summary – Narrator Verna, her sister Carlie, their recently-widowed, forward-thinking psychiatrist father, and their jealous, needy, manipulative, passive-aggressive Aunt Maude have just relocated to the outskirts of an upscale, turn-of-the-20th century insane asylum, where dad has taken a new job.  Part of the treatment plan at the asylum is to offer the patients meaningful work, and so Eleanor comes to work in their household, becoming a mother figure to the girls and a thorn in Aunt Maude’s side.  Unfortunately, Maude’s jealous, needy, manipulative, passive-aggressive antics jeopardize Eleanor’s recovery, but Verna dedicates herself to finding ways to undo the damage.

No – Where to begin?  The dialog was stiff (and not just because of the Victorian setting).  I didn’t feel invested in any of the characters.  The end note didn’t do anything to suggest that this rosy picture of the asylum was probably not the norm (other than to say, “not all hospitals for the mentally ill adhered to these high standards”).  And I thought the father’s prediction that one day there would be “medicine for the mind as there is for the body” was a little too Nostradamus. ^[1]  I certainly wasn’t the one doing the research for the book, so I may be underestimating the theories of the day, but it seemed like his opinion was skewed based on what we know today about using medication to treat mental illness.

My least favorite passages were the ones with interjected moments of self-reflection about events that hadn’t happened yet.  For example, one chapter ended with, “I was thinking only about bringing Eleanor back.  I was not thinking about what my plan might do to Eleanor.”  Seriously?  Just tell the story.  If Verna does something that she’s going to regret after, we savvy readers will pick up on it as it happens.  You don’t have to announce it beforehand.

Mental health angle – Eleanor was portrayed very nicely.  She was kind and knowledgeable, but with a very vulnerable side.  The reader got a glimpse into her life before she was institutionalized, and it helped to put her illness in context.  There wasn’t a lot of exposure to other patients, but there was one, Lucy, who was a self-injurer who appeared to be out of touch with reality.  Despite being considered disturbed, she was portrayed with dignity, and showed signs of improvement by the end of the story.  Points for rehabilitation.

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^[1]  Nostradamus is the perfect example, because he was an apothecary and a seer.  Also, ten points if you can tell me why I link his name with the verb “predictiate” in my mind.

Disclosure:  An uncorrected review copy was provided by the publisher.  They neither paid nor pressured me to speak well of it.