What She Left Behind

 A year and a half ago I read a book by Ellen Marie Wiseman called The Orphan Collector. That book was about the Spanish Flu pandemic in Pennsylvania. I enjoyed that book and now I enjoyed What She Left Behind. This story has two strong women in it. Clara lives in New York City. Her parents are cold, snobby and overbearing. Clara and her girlfriends sneak out, put on flapper dresses, and go dancing in Harlem. When she brings home an Italian suitor her parents arrange a marriage for her with one of the business associates of her father. Clara refuses the arranged marriage. Her angry father calls the police and has her taken to an asylum claiming she is mentally ill. Eventually he loses his fortune in the Depression and she is transferred to a state asylum where she is punished for disobeying with ice baths, seclusion, and insulin treatments. The other strong woman is 17 year old Izzy who is in foster care because her mother murdered her father. Izzy was 8 when that happened. For four years she lived with her Grandmother. When the Grandmother died Izzy went into foster care. Now she is living with a nice foster family who work at a local museum. The foster parents ask her to help them document the belongings of the patients who lived at a local asylum. Izzy finds the trunk that Clara brought with her including the flapper dresses, her journal, and the letters she sent to her Italian boyfriend. Izzy is determined to know the whole story of Clara. As historical fiction novels go, this one was good. Treatment of mental illness before medications were available were not always kind nor helpful. I enjoyed reading about these two strong women and I thought the ending was delightful.

The Nurses

 Alexandra Robbins is the author of the non-fiction book Nurses: A Year of Secrets, Drama, and Miracles With The Heroes Of The Hospitals. The book describes the careers of four different female nurses. All the nurses worked in hospitals. Some of the stuff they had to put up with was eye opening. Some nurses bully other nurses. I have seen some back stabbing moves in my day but I wouldn't have thought nurses would do that in a hospital setting. One of the nurses became addicted to drugs. She reported herself and got treatment and then went back to work. She loved her job so much she put herself back in a situation where she could obtain more drugs but managed to resist the temptation. The author followed four nurses for a year. I thought the book was very interesting.

Moon Over Lester River

I attended a pot luck at that building just west of the Lester River this evening. Hawk Ridge had an event for us to start the season. As I walked back to my car I saw a day taking a picture of the moon over the water so I decided she had a good idea.

 

Station Eleven

 A Canadian writer named Emily St. John Mandel wrote Station Eleven. This is a dystopian look at people in the Great Lakes region after the "Georgia Flu" killed 90% of the population. Now there is no more U.S. nor Canada. There is no electricity. There is no internet. The few people who are left are just trying to survive. The story starts out during a production of King Lear at a theater. A child actress, 8 years old, is on stage when the actor who played King Lear fell dead from a heart attack. She is one of the few people who survive the flu. She is traveling with a group of entertainers. One night they do a Shakespeare play and the next night the orchestra plays. They travel around Lake Michigan performing at places where survivors have gathered to live. By now all the stores and homes have been ransacked so they are living on fish, foraged food, rabbits and deer. Station Eleven is the name of a comic book that the child actress had and kept with her for the past twenty years. The topic is dark. The author has a way of telling the story in an understated fashion that was a pleasure to read. I understand HBO made this into a mini-series. I think I would rather keep the pictures and scenes I imagined while reading the book that watch the mini-series.

Folk Dancing

 Tonight a dozen folk dancers gathered in the park to dance. We danced to songs from Bulgaria, Africa, Israel, Scotland and Norway. Dozens of dragonflies flew over our heads catching mosquitoes. Several people walking by joined in our dancing. Most of us have gray hair but several people are in their 20's or 30's.

It Ends With Us

 Colleen Hoover is the author of It Ends With Us. This was a silly romance book but the characters were well developed and the story was believable. Lily is the main character. She grew up in Maine with a physically abusive father and a mother who would not leave him. Lily is not allowed to have friends over to her house and she grows up a lonely girl. Eventually Lily comes to resent both of her parents. As an adult she gets into a relationship with Ryle, an attractive neurosurgeon. To her dismay she ends up in the same situation as her mother. Lily is married to an abuser. At the hospital getting stitches in her head after an incident she finds out she is pregnant. This story is based on the lives of the author's parents and must have been difficult to write. The story has been developed into a screen play. The movie should be released in February of 2024.

Weekends At Bellwvue

 I read a book called Weekends At Bellevue. This is a psychiatrist's memoir of her weekends spent working at the psychiatric unit in New York City. The author is Julie Holland. The author has problems. She tries to be a good doctor but sometimes she is impulsive and rude and comes across as uncaring. Doctors see much tragedy in their work and must compartmentalize some things so they don't get "crispy" (burned out). Sometimes homeless people, eager for a night of rest and three hot meals, will claim to be suicidal just to get off the streets for a day. Police bring in prisoners to be assessed before heading to jail. Any prisoner who takes a psychiatric med has to come to Bellevue first. The story was interesting. Being a psychiatrist is not a job I would ever want.