In 1967, after a session with a doctor she'd never seen before, 18-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi to McLean Hospital. She spent most of the next two years on the ward for teenage girls in a psychiatric hospital that was as renowned for its famous clientele -- Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor, and Ray Charles were among its patients -- as for its progressive methods of treating those who could afford its rare sanctuary. Her story, in a series of spare, razor-sharp vignettes marked by startling black humor, gives lasting and specific dimension to our definitions of mental illness and recovery.
This summary is courtesy of McNaughton Books