The Shutter of Snow is a remarkable work. It is Emily Holmes Coleman’s only novel, written after she was interred in a mental hospital for postpartum psychosis. As you can imagine, therapy in the 1920s was not sophisticated.
Sometimes Marthe Gail believes she is God, sometimes Jesus Christ. She thinks her husband and the doctors are keeping her baby away from her, or maybe she didn’t have a baby. Or maybe he is dead.
She is injected in her spine, wrapped in sheets and submerged in water for hours. Imprisoned under a canvas sheet with only a hole for her face.
She makes improvements and is moved to a freer ward, gets in a fight with a patient or hangs like a monkey from pipes or dances naked through the ward and is moved back. She begs to see her husband but then is angry with him when he comes.
Her story is told from her own point of view, which is sometimes angry, sometimes hallucinogenic, sometimes filled with humor. The writing style does not break out speech from thought, so it is occasionally briefly confusing, but propels the reader along with it.
What? Me Read? 