TEN DAYS IN A MADHOUSE by Nellie Bly

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a National History Day showcase at my son's school. As we browsed the talented students' projects, I came across an exhibit one articulate young lady prepared about Nellie Bly. She told us that Nellie Bly was a reporter who got herself committed to an insane asylum in the 1880s to write a story about it. I went home, found the e-book on Amazon, and purchased it for 99 cents (I found it later for free here).

Ten Days in a Madhouse was written in 1887; it's easy to read and filled with humor, despite the horrible conditions Nellie Bly endured. At the time, it was easy to get committed; an internet search for  insane asylum commitment reasons will show you an array of what could be viewed as typical problems today. All Nellie had to do was pretend she didn't know where she came from; otherwise, she behaved totally sane. Even she seemed surprised at how easy it was and that she wasn't discovered.

The story itself tells a story of mistreatment and cover-up; any patient who tried to tell anyone otherwise was judged as providing proof of her insanity. The book talked about beatings, rope lines, cold inedible meals, and frigid baths taken in the same water as all of the other patients. It was all covered up by the nurses who enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle with fresh fruits who teased and tortured the patients (some of who were sane).

After Nellie's expose', the conditions at Blackwell Island in New York City changed for the better, at least on paper. Though I have to wonder after reading what Nellie witnessed if I can trust that things actually improved.

The website nellieblyonline.com contains a wealth of information about Nellie Bly, the pen name for her real name of Elizabeth Jane Cochrane, along with a link to the free electronic book. Nellie pioneered investigative reporting and is also known for reports she did about working conditions and travelling around the world. 

I don't know if the students at my son's school learned anything at the showcase, but I did and I think some of what Nellie witnessed may end up in my next novel...

RIVER BEND CHRONICLE by Ben Miller

Source: http://amzn.to/1qVgTFM

I found this book, the full title of which is River Bend Chronicle: The Junkification of a Boyhood Idyll Amid the Curious Glory of Urban Iowa, while browsing the local section in my Davenport, Iowa, Barnes and Noble. I love to learn the stories of places by visiting historical museums and reading books. When I started reading the Prologue and recognized the names of some of the people mentioned, I had to buy it.*

River Bend Chronicle is a memoir starting in approximately the late 1960s or early 1970s after the author came to Davenport. I call it a literary memoir because of the detailed, vivid, colorful and fresh, almost poetic, descriptions and writing style. The text is filled with subtle humor. If we're talking English composition, the long, somewhat drawn out style is inappropriate. But for a literary piece, it fits perfectly. Some of the expressions reminded me of A Christmas Story: ornate, musical, and subtly humorous.

Parenthesis were numerous in the book, especially more toward the beginning. Sometimes they added to the story, so the parenthesis marks weren't necessary. At other times, they were distracting or didn't add to the story and could've been eliminated. The book also included photographs that I recognized as subjects around Davenport but I would've liked to have seen captions. These are minor issues, however, and never tempted me to stop reading.

The book is not just a memoir or a life story; it's a study of the author's life to find meaning and the cause and effect of how and why it turned out as it did. And really, it is the story of a writer and how this particular writer came to be from despair. It seems that, like a lot of writers, the writer was always within Ben Miller waiting to get out, and thankfully it did. I can relate; in all my young experiences, especially despair, I turned to words to cope.

In addition to the content, the words themselves evoke sad overtones of something lost and missed. It's an insightful, thought-provoking journey of a life from point A to point B.

There seems to be several, weaved-together layers in this memoir. The story is also about a boy's tumultuous, complicated relationship with his family that reflects in depth on being the eldest sibling amid a dysfunction that seemed to be rampant in families during the 1970s.

The story was engaging, but heavy, taking me a couple of weeks to read so on a can't-put-it-down-scale of one for I couldn't even finish it to ten for I was up until the wee morning hours, I would give it a six and a half.

If you're looking for a light, beach read, this book is not for you. If you like to study people and delve into their minds to find out how they tick, you would enjoy this book. It shows that we Iowans are more than farmers living ideal, rural lives but that many of us live in real cities with real hurts.


Source: Miller, Ben. 2013. River Bend Chronicle. Lookout Books: Wilmington.

*These people were associated with The Midwest Writing Center, a non-profit organization in its pre-infancy (and maybe infancy) during the time period the book covers. I volunteer for MWC and serve on its Board of Directors.
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