Blue Asylum by Kathy Hepinstall

Publication Date: April 10, 2012

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Genre: Historical/Literary Fiction

Why I Chose It: Random library find; because of my love of historical fiction, my interest in the U.S. Civil War era, and my fascination with how psychological issues were diagnosed and "treated" throughout history. I am also particularly interested in how attitudes toward women influence beliefs about and treatment of mental illness.

Rating: (4.5/5 Stars)


I'm curious about what readers think of the new format of my book reviews. I thought this would include a bit more relevant information. Also, since I tend to write relatively long reviews, with excerpts to offer examples of the author's writing, I thought the synopsis might be a good option for readers who prefer reading reviews that are more concise. Opinions?? :)

Synopsis of My Review:
 
When Iris Dunleavy becomes a plantation wife, her life quickly deteriorates. As the South disintegrates in the wake of the brutal War Between the States, Iris is tried and convicted of madness. She has defied and humiliated her husband in a spectacular way, and the relatively expensive and luxurious Sanibel Asylum, on a remote Florida island, has promised to return Iris to him as a good, compliant wife.  

Gradually, throughout the novel, Iris's story unfolds, and we learn why she is incarcerated in the asylum. Meanwhile she befriends Ambrose Weller, a young Confederate soldier whose spirit has been shattered by the war. As with Iris, we gradually learn his story throughout the course of the book.

This story is told from multiple perspectives. This author writes in a lyrical style with great attention to detail. The novel also has elements of magical realism, reflected in the writing style and the odd, quirky collection of inmates at the insane asylum. This quality, along with the lyrical prose, make Blue Asylum different from most other historical novels I have read.

This novel skillfully blends artful prose, vivid descriptions, and memorable characters with a well-crafted plot and well-chosen historical details. The events in the story are dramatic, often heart-wrenching, but wholly believable. Blue Asylum also explores powerful themes, including the struggle for justice, guilt, grief, and love. It also delves into the use of mental health "treatment" as a tool for subjugating women, an important topic I don't often see explored in literature.

Full Review: 

Like many young women coming of age, Iris Dunleavy is eager to experience the new and unfamiliar. None of her suitors, local boys with whom she grew up, interest her. So when she is courted by a plantation owner from Winchester, despite her opposition to slavery, she is captivated. After exchanging letters for a while, they decide to marry.

And so it was that Iris fell in love, not so much with a man as with an exceedingly proper and literary courtship, one that left behind a stack of letters her father carefully bound with a length of cord and kept in the bottom drawer of his desk. (p. 18)

When Iris becomes a plantation wife, her life quickly deteriorates. As the South disintegrates in the wake of the brutal War Between the States, Iris is tried and convicted of madness. She has defied and humiliated her husband in a spectacular way, and the relatively expensive and luxurious Sanibel Asylum, on a remote Florida island, has promised to return Iris to him as a good, compliant wife.  

Iris continually maintains that she is sane and her husband is a cruel and evil man. However, she doesn't find a sympathetic ear in Dr. Cowell, who has built his career on research about how women's liberation contributes to mental illness among females. The doctor is both attracted to and repelled by Iris's intelligence and inner strength.

Women, he decided, became unhappier the better they were treated. He pitied her husband and wondered what tricks of perception, what prayers, what gin had got him through daily life with her. (p. 48)

Gradually, throughout the novel, Iris's story unfolds, and we learn why she is incarcerated in the asylum. Meanwhile she befriends Ambrose Weller, a young Confederate soldier whose spirit has been shattered by the war. As with Iris, we gradually learn his story throughout the course of the book.

Having given up on finding legal justice, Iris hopes to find a way to escape the asylum. She dreams of freedom, and being with the people she truly loves, back in Virginia. At the same time, she hopes to help Ambrose, which may prove a Sisyphean task.

This novel is told from multiple perspectives. While most of the story is seen through Iris's eyes, it we also get the perspectives of Ambrose, Dr. Cowell, and the doctor's wife and son. This author writes with a lyrical style with great attention to detail. Her descriptive passages, particularly those that explore the natural world, are gorgeous. I savored her descriptions of the island, including the sea turtles who drag themselves onto shore to lay their eggs, the birds who swoop down to capture fish, and the myriad colors of the sky. What captivated me even more were the vivid descriptions of Ambrose's experiences in the war, from images of battle to scenes of quotidian life in forest encampments.

This novel also has a quality of magical realism:

The world was cruel and  sudden. This he knew for sure. Relax for a moment, breathe in the scent of a rose, rest in the shade, pet a dog, take a sip of lemonade, fall in love with a dreamy-eyed girl, or a haunted-faced man, and you are just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Buzzing around the lemonade, you'll find flies. Follow the flies and you'll find death. (p. 58)

This magical realism is reflected in the variations of "madness" found among the asylum's inmates. For example, we meet a blind man bombarded with smells reminding him of the woman who rejected him, a woman who lives blissfully with the dead husband she believes is still alive, and a lady who grieves every creature's pain. The vein of magical realism running through the book reminds me a bit of the work of Alice Hoffman. This quality, along with the lyrical prose, make Blue Asylum different from most other historical novels I have read.

This novel skillfully blends artful prose, vivid descriptions, and memorable characters with a well-crafted plot and well-chosen historical details. The events in the story are dramatic, often heart-wrenching, but wholly believable. Blue Asylum also explores powerful themes, including the struggle for justice, guilt, grief, and love. It also delves into the use of mental health "treatment" as a tool for subjugating women, an important topic I don't often see explored in literature.

Other Reviews: Kristen at BookNAround; Wisteria Leigh at Bookworm's Dinner; Kate at Ex Libris; Briana at Pages Unbound; Amy at The House of the Seven Tails; Annette's Book Spot

If This Interests You, You Might Also Enjoy: 

• Other excellent literary novels about the Civil War -- The Black Flower by Howard Bahr; Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier; March by Geraldine Brooks
• Other novels that explore the use of institutions for the insane as a way for husbands to deal with "willful and disobedient" wives or dispose of unwanted spouses: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters; Dracula in Love by Karen Essex
  
• Does Anyone Have Other Recommendations???

March by Geraldine Brooks

March re-imagines the absent father in Little Women, who went to war and returned to his wife and daughters in a memorable Christmas scene. Although Geraldine Brooks adopted the elegant, rather formal language of the period, in a novel reflecting many of the moral values in Louisa May Alcott's most famous classic, March is not a children's story. It is a war story, gorgeous and eloquent but also raw and brutal.

"At the end of the novel, a year later, Mr. March returns to his family, in the delightful story-book fashion," Brooks wrote in the afterword to her novel, "to celebrate the wonderful transformation of his girls. But what war has done to March himself is left unstated. It is in this void that I have let my imagination work."

March takes us back to 1861. Mr. March, a character inspired by Louisa May Alcott's father Bronson Alcott, is a non-denominational minister, Unitarian in his beliefs. He is an idealist, a man of uncompromising ideals, and an ardent abolitionist. Inspired by the charismatic preaching of John Brown, he has spent his fortune trying to aid the abolitionist cause and finally enlisted as a Union army chaplain in The War Between the States.

As the story opens, he is with troops in Virginia, writing home to Marmee and his "little women" in a way that artfully cloaks the truth about what he's experiencing.

He privately remembers the last time he was in Virginia, twenty years ago, as a young man earning his fortune through peddling. It was then that he came face to face with slavery for the first time. As March remembers that time, the author explores the evil of slavery in a way that is unflinchingly honest, yet multi-layered.

Now, two decades later, March has left his beloved family behind to serve the Union, seeing war as a necessary evil to emancipate the slaves. This is a comforting view that we still learn from textbooks. But the reality he sees is starkly different. Few of his comrades in the Northern army share his abolitionist convictions, and they are often just as cruel in their treatment of "Negroes" as their Southern counterparts. Furthermore the violence and suffering around him strip away March's moral certainty, layer by layer.

The truth: I was angry at myself, for not having had the courage to stand aside from the crying up of this war and say, No. Not this way. You cannot right injustice by injustice. You must not defame God by preaching that he wills young men to kill one another. For what manner of God could possibly will what I see here? There are Confederates lying in this hospital, they say; so there is union at last, a united states of pain. Did God will the mill-town lad in the next ward to be shot or run a steel blade through the bowels of the farmhand who now lies next to him? -- a poor youth, maybe, who never kept a slave?

He serves as chaplain as best he can, and he is later thrust into an opportunity to teach "contraband" slaves seized by the Union army. He has a passion for teaching, and this calling creates meaning for him. However, he is unable to reclaim his moral compass. And in time, though he longs to reconnect with his wife and daughters, his brutal memories and deep guilt create a wall that seems impenetrable.

Geraldine Brooks did a tremendous amount of research on Bronson Alcott, an odd and fascinating historical figure, to help her create Mr. March, an man who is eloquent and wise, yet at the same time naive and often ineffectual. This is a beautiful book, one in which you savor the author's eloquence, vivid images and richly imagined, complex characters. At the same time, while it offers glimmers of hope, it is painful and disturbing.

Geraldine Brooks has effectively recreated the time and places in which it is set, ranging from March's native New England, which we visit through generous flashbacks, to the war-torn South. We meet actual historical figures, including John Brown, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. We also see the unfinished United States capital in Washington, D.C., drenched in mud and overrun by wartime mercenaries of various types -- I found these scenes particularly vivid. I also loved March's mindful attention to the natural world, inspired by Thoreau, that nourishes vivid, gorgeous imagery in this novel.

This is an unforgettable book about love, suffering, and the fate of idealists in the real world. I found it hard to put down, and I will find it even more difficult to forget.

Read More Reviews:
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The Bookworm's Hideout


Rating: 5

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me

Black Angels by Linda Beatrice Brown

On a warm, moonlit North Carolina night, twelve-year-old Luke escapes from the Higsaw plantation, where he has been a slave all his life. It is September, 1864, near the end of the Civil War. The social fabric of the South is unraveling quickly, and although President Abraham Lincoln has emancipated the slaves, his decree is not being obeyed by the Confederacy.

Left behind by the group of adults with whom he planned to escape, Luke is forced to survive on his own. He heads North, hoping to join Union forces. He meets nine-year-old Daylily, another former slave, who has just witnessed the murder of her loved ones, and seven-year-old Caswell, son of a slave owner, whose home and family were destroyed by invading Yankee troops. Terrified and facing starvation, the three children cling together to survive. They learn to fish, hunt and care for each other, and when illness threatens Daylily's life, they meet a courageous Black Indian woman who saves their life. At myriad painful moments, they sustain each other with stories and games.

This novel is beautifully written, with a wealth of sensory details -- sights, sounds, smells, tastes and sensations -- that drew me deeply in each scene. The time and place seemed remarkably real, and I had a strong sense of each character's emotions and spirit.

Black Angels also offered a thoughtful look of some aspects of the end of the Civil War and the Reconstruction era, including the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. It stays above simplistic moral judgments. We get glimpses of both the courage and brutality of soldiers on both sides of the conflict. This story also touches on the stories and spiritual beliefs of several ethnic groups.

Parents should know that this novel touches on some brutally realistic aspects of slavery and war. This includes depictions of slaves being beaten or killed and female slaves being sexually exploited by their masters, who later sell the children who are the fruits of these unions. While these incidents are not portrayed graphically, they could still be quite disturbing for someone not thoroughly familiar with these aspects of history. There is also a fairly intense, bloody battle scene. I admire the author's courage in telling children the truth about slavery and war, and it certainly could have much more brutal than it was, considering the subject matter. But I suggest that parents and teachers consider a child's readiness for this material before steering them toward this book.

I strongly recommend this outstanding historical novel to adults as well as mature pre-teens and adolescents. Students and autodidacts will find a wealth of opportunities for discussing the Civil War, slavery, Reconstruction, and literature.  

Black Angels is beautiful, and at times brutally honest. Above all, it is a tribute to human courage, loyalty and love and the potential young people have to rise above their suffering and go on to make meaningful changes in the world. This story, and these characters, are richly developed, hopeful, honest and unforgettable.

Black Angels was released in September. Many thanks to editor Stacey Barney at Putnam for giving me the opportunity to review this galley. See the author's site for more information. Also see this interview with Linda Beatrice Brown at The Brown Bookshelf
Don't miss Susan's review at Bloggin' 'bout Books, which is exquisitely well-written, and thank you, Susan, for recommending me as a reviewer for this novel. :-)


Rating: 4

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me

The Black Flower by Howard Bahr

On this November afternoon, Bushrod Carter was barely twenty-six, but his greasy hair and mustache were already shot with gray. The grime of the long campaign from Atlanta was etched in the lines of his face and in the cracked knuckles of his hands; crammed under his fingernails was a paste of black powder, bacon grease, and the soil of three Confederate states ... The fortunes of war had left him still a private of the line, carrying a musket in the ranks of the regiment he had joined more than three years before ... It was just as well with him, for he really possessed no military ambition. In fact, he was sure he no longer possessed ambition of any kind. (p. 5)

Bushrod Carter and fellow Cumberland County, Mississippi natives comprise a weary regiment of soldiers, fighting "The Strangers" from the North, for reasons they only dimly understand. Carter, a University of Mississippi graduate, stands with his childhood friends, Jack and Virgil, as they prepare for battle. They gather near a house which will be used as a makeshift hospital. The residents of the house, including Caroline, her two children, and her cousin Anna, have only a nebulous sense of the horror they'll soon witness. The chronology of this novel unfolds over the course of two days and takes us through the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, one of the bloodiest battles of the War Between the States.

The Black Flower is written in poetic style; I often paused to savor the exquisite language. And, as with a poem, there is a sense of the story taking place outside time. This is fitting in a novel in which death is such a pervasive theme. The reader weaves in and out of Bushrod's thoughts and memories, and later into Anna's mind, slipping into flashbacks and glimpses of the future. We see the brutality of the battle and its aftermath, when surgeons, drunk on chloroform, saw off soldiers' limbs. We experience snippets of the characters' past. We also gaze into a future when women of the former Confederacy will silently visit graves, and all that will remain of many of the soldiers -- both Confederates and "Strangers" -- are belt buckles, bullets, and other detritus of battles that were fought.

This book is gorgeously written, thoroughly researched, and vivid, with bits of humor woven in. The characters are well drawn and believable. Sometimes they show strength, loyalty, and love, and at times they are cowardly and cruel. In the end, we watch Bushrod and Anna glean some human dignity, and even a glimmer of love, from a situation that is brutal and in many ways hopeless. I was entranced by the beauty of the novel, and I felt as if I were hearing a first-hand account of part of the Civil War.

On the other hand, I found it somewhat unsatisfying. I wanted to know the characters in more depth, and I was craving a bit more of a narrative story, which might have developed as we delved into the characters' pasts. I didn't see this as a weakness in the novel -- it's just a more literary, less plot-driven kind of work. And the way it was written, with quick, vivid snatches of memory, feels real. After all, we look back on our past in glimpses, not as a flowing narrative.

I enjoyed the wealth of ideas The Black Flower explored. For example, time was an important theme. One character grasps the idea of time as a continuous line, like a landscape laid out before him. And throughout the horrifying events unfolding, the clock intermittently chimes. In keeping with the pervasive sense of being outside time, at one point it doesn't stop chiming at 12 -- it keeps tolling away.

I recommend this award winning book to readers interested in learning more about the U.S. Civil War and to historical fiction aficionados who enjoy novels with an "artsy," literary feel.


Rating: 4

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me