The Shutter of Snow (American Literature Series)

Emily Holmes Coleman's The Shutter of Snow presents a close study of what it was like to be treated in a 19th-century mental hospital. The innovative language and viewpoint follow the thoughts and actions of Marthe Gail, institutionalized for depression after the birth of her son. Coleman draws a brilliant picture of Gail's mind and its passage through the fog of her illness; portraits of other patients and the caretakers who attend them are equally striking. Unlike Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wall-Paper, in this startling story Marthe's husband offers loving support while she sorts through her delusions of being God and her violent behavior.