Title: The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic
Author: Darby Penney
First published January 1, 2008
Kindle Edition
Rating: 3.68
Overview
Dan Chaon’s Await Your Reply is a captivating novel that weaves together the lives of three strangers in unexpected ways. Miles Cheshire has been searching for his missing twin brother for a decade, but Hayden has left no trace.
Lucy Lattimore runs away from her small town with her former history teacher to start a new life, but something feels off. Ryan Schuyler’s life falls apart when he receives shocking news, and he decides to disappear and start anew.
All three characters must confront their pasts and navigate an uncertain future. Chaon’s masterful storytelling creates a riveting and suspenseful read, blurring the lines between truth and deception.
Await Your Reply is a literary gem that will leave readers on the edge of their seats.
Editoral Review
Darby Penney’s The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic is a haunting and heart-wrenching exploration of the lives of those forgotten by society. As a co-author with Peter Stastny, Penney thoroughly researched and documented the stories of people who had been confined to the Willard State Hospital in New York.
The Lives They Left Behind is a non-fiction book that takes its readers through the fascinating and heart-rending world of the patients who were left forgotten in the state hospital. It is a collection of more than 400 suitcases containing mementos that were discovered in an attic in the hospital.
The authors use the contents of the suitcases to delve deep into the personal stories of residents. This book is characterized by its unique writing style that is both thought-provoking and emotional.
Throughout the book, Darby Penney and Peter Stastny explore the ways in which the people in the Willard State Hospital were treated, mistreated, and eventually, forgotten. The narrative is emotionally impactful, using interviews with the former staff of Willard to provide a thorough understanding of the residents’ lives.
The authors portray the lives of the residents with incredible empathy and sensitivity, highlighting the individual personalities among the patients. The contents of their suitcases are painted as mementos of their life stories, highlighting experiences, and personhood.
The Lives They Left Behind offers a touching and lasting tribute to these forgotten individuals, awakening their memories in the reader’s consciousness. However, one flaw in the book is that some of the patients of Willard Hospital are not represented, and the story feels incomplete.
It would have been better if the authors had taken more time to gather more stories to offer a more comprehensive collection. Overall, The Lives They Left Behind is an incredibly poignant, compelling, and well-researched nonfiction work.
The book offers an insightful reflection of the suffering and mistreatment that mentally ill patients in state-run institutions experienced, shedding light on the wayless treatment of people with mental health conditions for more than a century. The Lives They Left Behind is a remarkable contribution to the literature in the fields of history, mental health, and social justice.
I would recommend this book to scholars, researchers, and historians of modern psychiatry and those interested in exploring the mystical history of mental healthcare. It will also appeal to anyone interested in the stories of the resilience of the human spirit.
Therefore, I would rate The Lives They Left Behind 4 out of 5 stars.
