Synopsis (Amazon link):
Ten years ago, Izzy Stone’s mother fatally shot her father while he slept. Devastated by her mother’s apparent insanity, Izzy, now seventeen, refuses to visit her in prison. But her new foster parents, employees at the local museum, have enlisted Izzy’s help in cataloging items at a long-shuttered state asylum. There, amid piles of abandoned belongings, Izzy discovers a stack of unopened letters, a decades-old journal, and a window into her own past.
Young flapper and suffragette Clara Cartwright is caught between her overbearing parents and her desire to be a modern woman. Furious when she rejects an arranged marriage, instead finding love with an Italian Immigrant, Clara’s father sends her to a genteel home for nervous invalids. But when his fortune is lost in the stock market crash of 1929, he can no longer afford her care—and Clara is committed to the public asylum.
Even as Izzy deals with the challenges of yet another new beginning, Clara’s story keeps drawing her into the past. If Clara was never really mentally ill, could something else explain her own mother’s violent act? Piecing together Clara’s fate compels Izzy to re-examine her own choices—with shocking and unexpected results.
I really, really liked this book! It was well written and very captivating. Although the story is fictional, Willard Asylum was a real asylum in New York. Each chapter is told from a character perspective in a specific time period. Although you get angry while reading this book, there is a redemptive ending.
The inspiration behind this novel came from an actual project that developed when a cleaning person found many dusty suitcases in the attic. Inside these suitcases were items that had not been touched in decades (resource). This will eventually become known as The Willard Suitcase Project. Jon Crispin was given the opportunity to document the contents of some of the suitcases. It is absolutely amazing to see how these items had never been touched since the individuals were admitted into the asylum. Click on the following link if you would like to see this amazing project and read about the individuals whose suitcase belongings document a part of history (link).
This is a quick read that leaves you turning pages. You can also check it out through Amazon Prime Reading. If you like historical fiction (or just fiction), I think you will love this book. Happy Reading!
