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124th out of 135 books
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301 voters
The Outward Room
The Outward Room is a book about a young woman’s journey from madness to self-discovery. It created a sensation when it was first published in 1937, and has lost none of its immediacy or its power to move the reader.
Having suffered a nervous breakdown after her brother’s death in a car accident, Harriet Demuth is committed to a mental hospital, but her doctor’s Freudian...more
Having suffered a nervous breakdown after her brother’s death in a car accident, Harriet Demuth is committed to a mental hospital, but her doctor’s Freudian...more
Paperback, 240 pages
Published
October 19th 2010
by NYRB Classics
(first published 1937)
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40th out of 100 books
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3 voters
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This novel is very good. It's written simply and with a quiet tenderness that moved me deeply. A woman escapes from a mental hospital and meets a kind, decent man who loves and cares for her. The characters hardly speak to each other but express their love in the movement of everyday life in Depression-era New York. She continues to suffer from deep sadness but heals slowly--by watching the morning sun shine through the window, by listening to the neighborhood children play. She watches for her...more
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I happened upon The Outward Room by chance recently and added it to my reading list, near the top.
The story follows Harriet from her days at an institution where she was resigned in the aftermath of witnessing her older brother’s death. She escapes and, with almost no money, finds her way to New York, seeking normalcy for her life.
With barely enough money to survive a week, she seeks a job and fails. Forced to sell her only possession—a ring given to her by her brother—she manages for a few more...more
The story follows Harriet from her days at an institution where she was resigned in the aftermath of witnessing her older brother’s death. She escapes and, with almost no money, finds her way to New York, seeking normalcy for her life.
With barely enough money to survive a week, she seeks a job and fails. Forced to sell her only possession—a ring given to her by her brother—she manages for a few more...more
I loved being in 1930s New York--the dark apartments with their soggy stairs; the courtyards filled with Italian children; the sweatshop the narrator briefly works in, cutting the threads off beautiful dresses. I enjoyed the realism of the story, and I found Harriet's child-like way with the world--after being in the hospital for so long--quite riveting, and surprising each time it came up.
I didn't, however, like the more associative, stream of consciousness writing that was braided into the str...more
I didn't, however, like the more associative, stream of consciousness writing that was braided into the str...more
A sweet, odd novel originally published in 1937. Harriet is in a locked ward of an asylum since she had a nervous breakdown five years ago when her brother died in an accident. Her days are fenced in by the hospital routine, visits with her doctor, and interactions with other patients on the ward. Impulsively, she escapes and makes her way to New York.
The novel is about her return to life and how her heart opens with her return to the world. I felt a little cynical about the incredible luck with...more
The novel is about her return to life and how her heart opens with her return to the world. I felt a little cynical about the incredible luck with...more
Millen Brand brings alive a long ago New York as the setting for the story of a young woman's regeneration. The main character escapes from a mental hospital where she has spent seven years of her young adulthood. She finds the will to live through the struggle of life during Depression-era New York and the comforts of carnal love. This is a quiet book, not much is said by the character, who calls herself Harriet, but much is observed in careful detail. Although sometimes as bleak as the time an...more
When I first heard about this book, I was excited to read it: who can deny the allure of the triumphant tale of a patient who escapes from an oppressive and ineffectual hospital, taking her destiny into her own hands? Initially I had doubts, though, that a sane man could write a truly convincing book from the perspective of a female psychiatric patient. Or rather, in light of the fact that mentally ill women are so frequently disenfranchised and stripped of their voices, I had qualms about the f...more
That I was expecting something depressingly awful to happen at any moment just shows how sensationalistic and overly dramatic most fiction is and how well it has shaped our expectations--and how removed from the lived daily life most of us lead. This novel has a quiet, understated decency, depicting the lives of a couple--particularly the woman--eking out a living during the Depression. Think William Maxwell, and you're on the right track. (Maxwell was also a contemporary of Brand's, but unlike...more
Somehow the idea of an asylum escapee trying to make it in The Big City is a lot more appealing than some rosy cheeked Career Girl trying to make a go of it. "The Outward Room" is all that and more, the literary equivalent to a sad Edward Hopper painting, i.e. "Automat" with the lonely girl in the cloche hat sitting all by herself in the diner, or his studies of the girl in night gown all by herself in her desolate afternoon tenement bedroom. Brand writes with a feminine touch, making the subjec...more
What an odd little book this is. It the story of Harriet, a woman who suffers a nervous breakdown after the death of her brother. This results in her being put in an asylum from which she escapes. Making her way to Manhattan, she barely scrapes by until she meets John, a machinist who takes her in. They fall in love and live as husband and wife. All of this takes place during the depths of the Great Depression, so their existence, as well as that everyone they know, is tenuous. Homelessness and...more
This historical novel chronicles a young, mentally ill woman's escape from the mental hospital and her new life in New York City. I was gripped by the story and her struggle to find herself in the real world. I wasn't completely in understanding of her mental illness as she sounded normal for the most part. All in all, a quick read and captivating.
This was a beautiful novel, not because of anything particular like plot, or character, or language, but because of it's quietness, it's simplicity, and it's ability to describe something so intimately through one person's eyes. I'm not even sure if I'm adequately describing what I liked about it...there was something about it that did not ring entirely true, but there were also these moments where I felt that she was taking us really inside herself and her experience. She was living her pain an...more
I came across this book at the library. It was the story of a young women committed to an asylum after the death of her brother. After seven years, she "escapes". She finds her way to New York and makes a life for herself. I loved the simplicity of the writing. A great find.
Sep 05, 2010
Linda Cohen
marked it as to-read
Thanks to Daniel@Boswell Books for the recommend. He recommends "Skippy Dies" in the same newsletter (and I so want to read that) that I know he has great taste!
Amazingly well written. Also, the afterward by Peter Cameron is thoughtful and thought provoking.
Spare, fragmented story of the Depression years in which a woman escapes from a mental hospital and makes her way to New York City, where she starts with nothing but finds "Life," as she keeps reminding herself, and love.
Oct 12, 2010
Anita
marked it as to-read
I'm actually reading an old, greenish, faded hard-cover from 1937 that I found.
2 1/2.
An interesting look at how mental illness was treated in the early part of the 20th century, morphing into a strangely touching love story.
not too thrilled with this one . a lot of talk not going anywhere. maybe i just don't understand all the literary devices used.
May 21, 2013
Lee
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May 19, 2013
Lauren Woody
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Mary
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