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The Storm at the Door: A Novel

by Stefan Merrill Block (Goodreads Author)

3.06 of 5 stars 3.06 · rating details · 350 ratings · 140 reviews

The past is not past for Katharine Merrill. Even after two decades of volatile marriage, Katharine still believes she can have the life that she felt promised to her by those first exhilarating days with her husband, Frederick. For two months, just before Frederick left to fight in World War II, Katharine received his total attentiveness, his limitless charms, his astonish...more The past is not past for Katharine Merrill. Even after two decades of volatile marriage, Katharine still believes she can have the life that she felt promised to her by those first exhilarating days with her husband, Frederick. For two months, just before Frederick left to fight in World War II, Katharine received his total attentiveness, his limitless charms, his astonishing range of intellect and wit. Over the years, however, as Frederick’s behavior and moods have darkened, Katharine has covered for him, trying to rein in his great manic passions and bridge his deep wells of sadness: an unending project of keeping up appearances and hoping for the best. But the project is failing. Increasingly, Frederick’s erratic behavior, amplified by alcohol, distresses Katharine and their four daughters and gives his friends and family cause to worry for his sanity. When, in the summer of 1962, a cocktail party ends with her husband in handcuffs, Katharine makes a fateful decision: She commits Frederick to Mayflower Home, America’s most revered mental asylum.

There, on the grounds of the opulent hospital populated by great poets, intellectuals, and madmen, Frederick tries to transform his incarceration into a creative exercise, to take each meaningless passing moment and find the art within it. But as he lies on his room’s single mattress, Frederick wonders how he ever managed to be all that he once was: a father, a husband, a business executive. Under the faltering guidance of a self-obsessed psychiatrist, Frederick and his fellow patients must try to navigate their way through a gray zone of depression, addiction, and insanity.

Meanwhile, as she struggles to raise four young daughters, Katharine tries to find her way back to Frederick through her own ambiguities, delusions, and the damages done by her rose-colored belief in a life she no longer lives.

Inspired by elements of the lives of the author’s grandparents, this haunting love story shifts through time and reaches across generations. Along the way, Stefan Merrill Block stunningly illuminates an age-old truth: even if one’s daily life appears ordinary, one can still wage a silent, secret, extraordinary war.(less)

Hardcover, 368 pages

Published June 21st 2011 by Random House (first published January 1st 2011)

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May 16, 2011 Ronda rated it 2 of 5 stars

Goodreads giveaway! Thanks so much for the book!

I honestly had a really hard time reading this one. I thought that I had a pretty extensive vocabulary but I needed a dictionary handy when reading this story. Block uses a lot of "five dollar words" and his style of writing made the storytelling feel sterile. As much as I wanted to, I never liked or got fully vested in the characters. Instead of the story flowing, I found it was mentally exhausting to read.

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Aug 30, 2011 Beth rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

Honestly, I had to struggle to get through this one. The author uses rather florid prose and draws out observations on everything. The voice, as he changed perspectives through a variety of characters, didn't change at all. The result was that every character seemed cold, detached from their environment completely, pre-planned in every detail, and haughty. I did not like anyone in this book, nor did I want to.

While I respect what the author was attempting (telling the true story of his grandpar...more

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Apr 25, 2011 Tiffany Smith rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

I am greatly appreciative that I won this book from the Goodreads First Reads giveaways.

"I can't live like this anymore." Katherine's words ring so true. This phrase was a mere reminder of how addiction and mental disorders can deem a family dysfunctional. This is a tragic tale that many will find compelling. The language used by Block is eloquent and florid. For any reader looking for a quick read, this may not be the book for you. To comprehend this intricate novel, you must be able to think c...more I am greatly appreciative that I won this book from the Goodreads First Reads giveaways.

"I can't live like this anymore." Katherine's words ring so true. This phrase was a mere reminder of how addiction and mental disorders can deem a family dysfunctional. This is a tragic tale that many will find compelling. The language used by Block is eloquent and florid. For any reader looking for a quick read, this may not be the book for you. To comprehend this intricate novel, you must be able to think critically and read between the lines. This novel will put you in the mind of works written by Hemingway, Saul Bellow, Fitzgerald, and the like.

The book title itself, in my opinion, is a metaphor that once understood gives new meaning to the underlying theme of the book. Willa Cather said, "There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm." Reading this novel has helped me to understand what Cather meant by this statement. I wonder if Block is familiar with this quote?

In literary terms, a storm is a conventional representation of an angry person. At times, that person is Frederick and at other times it is Katherine. A storm usually indicates trouble, trials and tribulations. A hurricane is trifle compared to the raging perils faced by the characters in the book.

A door, in literature, is representative of many different things. It can represent, when open, hope, opportunity and invitation. When closed, a door may represent mystery, being shut out or shut in, prison, and denial. I may be reading too much into the story, but the door may also be representative of the minds of all the characters. Everyone is at risk of succombing to some type of mental disorder and or addiction. None of us are safe from the "storm". It is what we do to protect ourselves that is different. All of these metaphoric representations are evident throughout the novel.

The Storm at the Door is masterfully written and it may very well become a classic that professors will use to discuss writer's tone, voice and purpose in years to come. I will probably read this book again. The first read was spent analyzing the point-of-view, which I would guess is first-person omniscient, and using context clues to define many of the grandiloquent words used by Block. I'm sure the second read will offer more time to embrace the well thought out story line and personalize the reading experience a bit more. (less)

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May 10, 2011 Diane rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads, general-fiction

I'm a little surprised by the many reviewers who found the writing to be difficult and pretentious. I think the story is a little difficult in that the subject is depressing, and this is not necessarily a "light" read. However, from the first page of this book, I was captured by writing. I loved the phrasing and descriptions. This is one of those writers whose sentences I look at and think, "Wow, what a great sentence."

I understand the subject of this book is loosely based upon the personal fami...more I'm a little surprised by the many reviewers who found the writing to be difficult and pretentious. I think the story is a little difficult in that the subject is depressing, and this is not necessarily a "light" read. However, from the first page of this book, I was captured by writing. I loved the phrasing and descriptions. This is one of those writers whose sentences I look at and think, "Wow, what a great sentence."

I understand the subject of this book is loosely based upon the personal family history of the author in that his grandmother had his grandfather committed to a mental hospital. There's a bit of the One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest feel to this book. It also made me think of Angelina Jolie's character in The Changeling, after she was committed to a mental hospital for insisting her son was not her son. Some interesting questions are presented about mental health and mental health care. There was no question that this guy had some issues/personal demons, but I was never quite sure whether he was "crazy" enough to be where he was. However, his wife was sick of putting up with his crap, and allowed herself to be convinced that was where he belonged. Once there, there seemed to be an almost insurmountable burden of proving sanity. Then of course, God forbid you acquire some potentially damaging information about your doctor, who might suddenly decide emphasizing your mental illness might be beneficial to him! I definitely had the impression that a quirk of fate could have had the doctor be the patient himself.

I did not feel terribly connected with the characters in this book. Katherine, in particular, seemed cold, indecisive and spineless. I didn't get any real sense of how the characters felt about each other. Katherine's focus seemed to be more on her embarrassment than any genuine feelings she had. I wish there had been more development of the characters as people as opposed to how the characters reacted to their situations.

I would consider this book to be more thought-provoking than entertaining. I appreciate having had the opportunity to read this through the First Reads giveaway. (less)

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Jan 11, 2012 John rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-own, fiction

Stefan Merrill Block's "The Storm at the Door" is an astonishingly original, quite compelling, fictional exploration of mental illness and its devastating impact on a family; a splendid jewel of fiction that establishes him as one of the greatest writers of his generation. It is a most courageous feat of high literary art, not merely because Block has opted to imagine anew the lives of his maternal grandparents, rendering into fiction what others might regard as mere memoir, as those worth notin...more Stefan Merrill Block's "The Storm at the Door" is an astonishingly original, quite compelling, fictional exploration of mental illness and its devastating impact on a family; a splendid jewel of fiction that establishes him as one of the greatest writers of his generation. It is a most courageous feat of high literary art, not merely because Block has opted to imagine anew the lives of his maternal grandparents, rendering into fiction what others might regard as mere memoir, as those worth noting via his exquisite, often lyrical, prose. It is courageous in examining the legacy of his grandfather's mental illness across the vast gulf of three generations. It is courageous too in its depiction of his grandfather's residency at Mayflower Home, the fictionalized version of McLean Hospital, one of the leading mental health hospitals in the United States. And it is there, at Mayflower Home that Block depicts in prose, a dismal portrait of a 1960s mental health hospital that is as bleak as the refuse and disease-laden lanes of Limerick, Ireland portrayed so vividly by Frank McCourt in his memoir "Angela's Ashes".

Block traverses easily between the realms of fact and fiction as he spins a captivating, quite engrossing, tale that is based loosely on the real lives of his maternal grandparents, Frederick and Katharine Merrill, his mother and her sisters. His characters are richly drawn and credible, and they include not only his grandparents, but especially those at the Mayflower Home; Schultz, a Harvard professor who hears the voices of his dead relatives, victims of the Nazi Holocaust, who live on in his poignant, often all too painful, memories, Robert Lowell, a poet (a fictionalized version of the real Robert Lowell, whose poetry is cited several times), Marvin Foulds, severely afflicted with multiple personality disorder, and Albert Canon, a Harvard psychiatrist whose cruel stewardship of Mayflower House leads to Frederick's electroshock therapy "punishment" and the suicides of several inmates. And yet, as memorable as these characters are, the one who holds our greatest attention is Katharine herself, an unlikely heroine struggling to keep her family intact as her husband descends into madness.

Block has written a most moving testament on the love affair between Frederick and Katharine, and of a marriage that endures despite Frederick's infidelity and insanity. But it is also a personal, quite heartfelt, act of discovery from Block himself, seeking to reclaim a "blank page" in his family's history while transforming it still into a great work of literary fiction destined to linger in the minds of its readers. Though some have regarded "The Storm at the Door" as this generation's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"; it is quite simply, much more; an affirmation of Stefan Merrill Block as one of the greatest American writers of his generation.
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Feb 28, 2012 Bonnie Brody rated it 5 of 5 stars

Stefan Merrill Block has written a novel so irrepressibly beautiful and poetic that it left me stunned. The Storm at the Door is based on the life of his grandparents, Frederick and Katharine. Partly imagined and partly based on fact, this is the story of a troubled family dealing with mental illness, secrets, and denial. It is also about the horror and the power of a psychiatric hospital, along with the myriad patients who have enacted their trust in this institution.

Frederick and Katharine met...more Stefan Merrill Block has written a novel so irrepressibly beautiful and poetic that it left me stunned. The Storm at the Door is based on the life of his grandparents, Frederick and Katharine. Partly imagined and partly based on fact, this is the story of a troubled family dealing with mental illness, secrets, and denial. It is also about the horror and the power of a psychiatric hospital, along with the myriad patients who have enacted their trust in this institution.

Frederick and Katharine met on the cusp of World War II and were married six months later. Theirs was a love affair based mostly on correspondence and the desperation of wartime. For some unknown reason, Frederick does not finish out his service and is placed in a naval hospital. When he is released he looks like a victim of starvation. The reasons for these events are never truly clear to Katharine.

Frederick is charismatic and the life of the party. He is also rowdy and loves his bourbon. He begins to be unfaithful to Katharine early on in their marriage. He disappears for days at a time and comes home promising to change and be a better man and husband. He has lots of plans and aspirations, none of which seem to come to fruition. He cannot hold down a job for long although he has an MBA from Harvard. When he drinks, which he seems to do to self-medicate, he is inappropriate but he is usually able to steer clear of getting into all-out trouble. Katharine's goal in life is to please others and she constantly and consistently forgives Frederick his transgressions.

One auspicious evening in 1962, Frederick drinks at least five bourbons and leaves a party, borrowing a friend's raincoat. He is naked underneath. He walks up to the nearest road and flashes either his rump or his genitals to oncoming traffic. Most of the cars just peer and go on. However, two old ladies call the police and Frederick is handcuffed and taken to jail. He has the option of prison or entering a psychiatric hospital. Katharine, with the help of her friends and relatives, decides to commit him to Mayflower Hospital , a fictional hospital based on the actual McClean Hospital in Massachusetts. McClean has been a shelter for the poet Robert Lowell, singer James Taylor, and mathematician John Nash. It is supposedly the best psychiatric hospital in the country. What Katharine and Frederick do not realize, however, is that Frederick's hospitalization is not strictly voluntary. He is to remain at Mayflower until the chief psychiatrist sees fit to release him.

When Frederick first enters the hospital, it is very laid back and the patients have privileges and room to move - physically and psychically. There are cows in the pasture and the setting is idyllic, designed by the great landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted on 65 beautiful acres. Frederick has been diagnosed with manic depression and the diagnosis appears to be quite accurate.

Stories of different patients are shared with the reader. Robert Lowell, the poet, suffers from manic depression. Professor Shultz, the Harvard linguist hears sounds in the words he read. His life of loss and tragedy most likely contributed to his first psychotic break as well as his subsequent ones. Marvin, the most famous patient at Mayflower, is a man of 15 distinct personalities ranging from a French poet to Carmen Miranda. James Marshall, a war veteran with only one limb (and not all his limbs were lost in the war) folds the U.S. flag with his one remaining arm, raises it on the flag pole daily and takes it down lovingly every night to refold.

Unfortunately, the administration of the hospital changes and a psychiatrist with sadistic tendencies and a desire for complete control takes the helm. During group therapy, he delights in bringing up painful aspects of each patient's illness and they cringe in the mandated group therapy with him. He greatly betrays each and every one of them.

The novel is told in alternating viewpoints; one chapter from Katharine's and the other from Frederick's. The structure works well. We understand what Frederick is going through in the desperate situation of his hospitalization, which goes on for months. He struggles with multiple solitary confinements and ECT (electric shock) treatments. We also see how hard it is for Katharine to sustain her family as a single parent and to maintain the strength she knows that she needs to have in order to find herself. She is gaining insight on codependency and sees that her desire to please helps everyone but herself.

All of the characters are given great depth. The patients, and the extent of their illnesses, is poetically described. Block gets mental illness, both the beauty and despair that go along with it. His poetic imagery and narrative never falter and the beauty of the book is sustained until the end. This is by far one of the best books I have read in the last ten years. It is a phenomenal feat of love and writing.(less)

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Jan 19, 2012 Roxanne rated it 2 of 5 stars

I am always interested in reading about the subject of mental illness. It is an illness that affects so many people in varying degrees.

I think that the writing in The Storm at the Door was way overdone and the subject matter did not get the honorable respect it should have. I wish the author would have went with complete fiction instead of throwing in "elements" of his grandparents lives. I base the remainder of my review on the information presented in the book as fact. Not fiction.

I finished...more I am always interested in reading about the subject of mental illness. It is an illness that affects so many people in varying degrees.

I think that the writing in The Storm at the Door was way overdone and the subject matter did not get the honorable respect it should have. I wish the author would have went with complete fiction instead of throwing in "elements" of his grandparents lives. I base the remainder of my review on the information presented in the book as fact. Not fiction.

I finished the book very disappointed. I think the unfortunate Frederick was a raging alcoholic who may have been incorrectly diagnosed. I kept waiting for something major to happen and it never did. To me it was a lot of fancy writing about absolutely nothing. The drunk who just wasn't funny anymore gets sent away to where drunks go. Oh, there is no place to send a drunk you are tired of dealing with? Well, then call him crazy and send him to the hospital where patients are treated for mental illness. While Frederick is there, he will become mentally ill because that is what he is told he is.

Katharine who should have kicked Frederick to the curb the first time she caught him cheating is an enabler. She has such a lack of self-worth that she continues to live a life of misery and I cannot connect to her character with any sympathy.

The use of the word "madness" was not in my memory bank a common way of describing mental illness back in the 1960's. Nervous breakdown was the terminology used most often to describe the often misunderstood behavior of family members or friends. I believe this reference was used only one time in the book.

I could not even get interested in this book until about half way through. I had a hard time understanding how none of Frederick's family went to visit him. And, it was not until the very end of the book that Katharine tells you she had NEVER been to the hospital until she went to retrieve Frederick.

Frederick's behavior while in the hospital showed no "manic" behaviors identifiable to me. I actually thought he was thinking logically and functioning in a normal capacity. How he acted after leaving the hospital makes me think he had ADHD. Very energetic, impulsive. Throw in the booze once again and Frederick is a very uncontrollable man. Is it any surprise that he fell and died after hitting his head?

While reading this book, I continuously felt the author was trying to impress someone in the Frederick chapters. The Katharine chapters are what held my interest. I wish there would have been more depth into how the daughters were coping with their home life.

I did not find this book to be any type of love story. Perhaps there should have been more examples of the happy times. I did not come away with any feeling of enduring love. Just the opposite.

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Dec 30, 2011 Vera rated it 2 of 5 stars

Follow all my reviews at LuxuryReading.com

The Storm at the Door is a fictional account based on the author’s, Stefan Merrill Block’s, own grandparents. It is a story of great love and of learning to live with one’s choices, no matter how justified. Katharine believes that she made the right decision, but her conviction does not prevent her from wishing for the life she once had with her husband.

That said, The Storm at the Door was not my cup of tea. It is a well written piece of literary fiction...more

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Aug 29, 2011 Judith rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book was highly acclaimed by PEOPLE magazine, and while you may well scoff at the trustworthiness of anything written in that magazine, I have found it to be a fairly reliable source for book reviews, if you take it with a grain of salt. Unlike, NYT book reviews, PEOPLE has their finger on the pulse of the good old unwashed American public, and therefore can't be beaten when it comes to Pop culture.

However, this book was a bore till about halfway through and then it began to pick up speed...more

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Jul 24, 2011 Lori rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

I am happy to say that I won this book from the Goodreads First Reads giveaway.

This is a fictional story, inspired by the lives of the author's grandparents' as they struggled to deal with his grandfather's mental illness. It is a VERY well-written book. Block's ability to turn a phrase is at times stunning. His prose flowed beautifully with a literary quality that is not often seen in current fiction. That being said, this is not an easy read; this is not an easy subject. This is a complex iss...more

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Jul 06, 2011 Zohar - ManOfLaBook.com rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

“The Storm at the Door” by Stefan Merill Block is a fictional book inspired by the author’s grandparents. Mr. Block, while researching his grandparents, imagined a world around them.

When Frederick Merill leaves his wife Katharine and children to fight in World War II everything seems to be fine. however over the years Frederick starts to change, his behavior and moods become dark.

While Frederick struggles with his own inner demons, Katharine struggles to keep up appearance...more “The Storm at the Door” by Stefan Merill Block is a fictional book inspired by the author’s grandparents. Mr. Block, while researching his grandparents, imagined a world around them.

When Frederick Merill leaves his wife Katharine and children to fight in World War II everything seems to be fine. however over the years Frederick starts to change, his behavior and moods become dark.

While Frederick struggles with his own inner demons, Katharine struggles to keep up appearances hoping for things to change. However things don’t change, Frederick is committed to a mental asylum and Katharine is left dealing with a difficult life and an unsympathetic society.

I didn’t know what to expect from “The Storm at the Door” by Stefan Merill Block (website), the book sounded interesting, about a time period I like to read about, taking place in Boston – a city which I’ve visited several times and intend to visit several times more.

What I got was a lyrical, but haunting, account of the author’s grandparents, Katherine and Frederick, their lives and struggles with his grandfather’s mental illness and his grandmother’ trials and tribulations of surviving not only economically, but also society’s stigma.

Mr. Block’s writing is both sensitive and articulate, detailing the horrors of mental illness institutions and the heavy price spouses and children have to pay. As much as Frederick is suffering in the institution, Katherine’s world of shuttered dreams is also poignant and heartbreaking.

At first it was difficult for me to get into the book, some of the sentences felt heavy and the prose was too flowery for my personal tasted. However, once I settled into the rhythm and the story the book came together and became very enjoyable.

The author’s elegant but distributing description of a mental institutions was difficult to comprehend. Not because of the descriptive physical horrors imposed upon the patient, there isn’t much of that. The author describes the institution as a bureaucratic nightmare, self-important, cold, callous and calculating.

For more book reviews and bookish thoughts please visit http://www.ManOfLaBook.com (less)

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Jul 05, 2011 Joyce rated it 5 of 5 stars

The first fiction book I read based on real incidents was Truman Capote's IN COLD BLOOD. It was a revolutionary genre. Decades later, we are presented with a brilliant chronicle of the author's grandparents as he integrates his research into a lyrical story of mental illness and love.

Frederick Merrill (note the author's middle name) is the husband of Katharine and father of four daughters. He is usually an exhilarating man with a ferocious intelligence and charming wit. Merrill served during Wo...more The first fiction book I read based on real incidents was Truman Capote's IN COLD BLOOD. It was a revolutionary genre. Decades later, we are presented with a brilliant chronicle of the author's grandparents as he integrates his research into a lyrical story of mental illness and love.

Frederick Merrill (note the author's middle name) is the husband of Katharine and father of four daughters. He is usually an exhilarating man with a ferocious intelligence and charming wit. Merrill served during World War II and returns as an anorexic which instantly puzzles his wife. She accepts his volatile personality and behavior often bolstered by liquor. Forward to the next twenty years as Frederick Merrill, who sporadically provides for his family, is a victim of manic passions and dangerous depressions. Bourbon often served as a catalyst for the manic episodes which seems to be a familiar theme in many intellects, such as Hemingway who also suffered from mental illness and alcoholism.

Katharine is a devoted wife, dedicated to making excuses for her husband's outrageous behavior until one night in 1962 when his actions reach a public display of nudity on a highway and he is led away in handcuffs. Katharine's friends and parents convince her to commit him to the Mayflower Home for the Mentally Ill. The story takes place near Boston and Mayflower becomes the asylum of choice for the famous; one voluntary patient is the poet Robert Lowell.

Merrill's tenure at Mayflower is a depiction of the helplessness of the mentally ill and for that matter, any prisoner. Locked up, deprived of freedom, learning the landscape to avoid solitary or electroshock treatments, is a heartbreaking commentary. Mayflower is represented as an upscale institution with the latest treatments and theories. Miltown (the Xanax or Valium of today) was distributed to reduce outbursts and ultimately alleviate energy. Since Block was not bound by fact, he used his creativity to expose his grandfather's incarceration as a man held against his will. He is at the mercy of doctors who are engulfed with their own egos. Ironically, his father-in-law pays the high fees until he tells his daughter he can no longer afford it. At this point in the story, I expected Merrill to be released as a non-paying patient but he is not.

Katharine suffers from lack of money, an unsympathetic society and a difficult life. She has mixed feelings but her anger is clouded by her constant struggle to survive economically and protect her four daughters from the social stigma of a "crazy" father.

Everyone was a prisoner. Block enlightened the reader about mental illness treatment in the 1960's but he brought the despair to an agonizing roadblock. He puts us inside of Frederick's insane and lucid mind. Entrenched with Merrill's demons and Katharine's isolation and the other inhabitants of Mayflower, Block brilliantly overlaps fact and fiction and left me breathless. (less)

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Apr 23, 2011 Janet rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: drama, hated-it

I was delighted to receive an ARC from First Reads, and dove right in to "The Storm at the Door." However, I have to admit that I was a little disappointed.

Block had a compelling story to tell in his fictionalized account of the lives of his grandparents, their relationship, and the part mental illness, and sketchy treatment for it, had to play. I wanted to become engaged in this story and to embrace the characters, flaws and all, but I just couldn't reach them through all the words.

I'm not a w...more

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Apr 17, 2011 Richard rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Book Report: What happens when a naive young woman meets a tall, dark, and handsome young man on the eve of WWII? He's charming, he's witty, he's intense, and he's going away to war in the Navy. Give up? They get married! When TD&H comes home after only a few months, spends some time in a hospital for the non-physically wounded, and is discharged, the course of the future is set.

The author's maternal grandparents are the protagonists of this novel. He wrote it as a novel, in my opinion,...more The Book Report: What happens when a naive young woman meets a tall, dark, and handsome young man on the eve of WWII? He's charming, he's witty, he's intense, and he's going away to war in the Navy. Give up? They get married! When TD&H comes home after only a few months, spends some time in a hospital for the non-physically wounded, and is discharged, the course of the future is set.

The author's maternal grandparents are the protagonists of this novel. He wrote it as a novel, in my opinion, because the drama inherent in this tale of madness, manic depression, motherhood, and untimely death demands things that mere reportage can't deliver. I can't imagine how Mr. Block's mother must feel, seeing her parents' hellish agonies spread wide for the world to view. I can't think it was done without at the minimum consulting her. But this act of revelation, this telling of the disintegration of a family, of a man's mind, and of the consequences of naivete, cannot have been easy for the lady to take in, even fictionalized and told through her son's eyes. I don't know if this is a brave book, or merely a sensational appropriation of the pain of the past.

My Review: NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH. The scenes in the fictionalized madhouse outside Boston are extremely hard to read with equanimity. It's not some neo-Victorian hotbed of cruelty; no, it's far worse; it's modern bureaucratized Kafkaesque insensitivity, callousness, and self-aggrandizement causing the final dissolution of a man's mind and spirit. It's horrible, in that sense. The author's rather dead-pan prose makes this quality of coldness so much more vicious than a highly emotive or overblown and descriptive style would have done.

The author's grandfather died many years before he was born. His grandmother, however, lived on to be a burden to her family during her own descent into dementia. Mr. Block deals with every strain of mental disease in this book. It isn't a jolly little bagatelle, but it is quite an accomplishment for someone so obnoxiously young (not even thirty!) to come to grips with so many strands of the pain of the past in this public way. It makes up in courage and rightness for what it lacks in smiling, sunshiney pleasures of reading. It's the kind of book I don't exactly recommend to people, so much as alert them to it and allow them to decide what to do with the knowledge. Don't be fooled. This book will change you, it will challenge you, and it will make your synapses fire in strange and new constellations of emotion and empathy.

You may not like that. Prepare for it. I think you'll be better off for having read the book.
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Aug 05, 2011 Michelle rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

Fictionalized account of the author’s grandparents in the summer and fall of 1962 after his grandfather was sent away to an insane asylum. The writing is gorgeous, almost too gorgeous. It is at times a tad flowery compared to the grim backdrop of the mental institution. Some of the sentences, however lovely, were working a bit too hard.

The characters come across as somewhat cold, but the detached angle works with the subject matter (at least for me). But I can see how it might turn off some read...more

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May 15, 2011 Mersaydez rated it 3 of 5 stars

I was quite happy when I won this book from the Goodreads First Reads giveaways. I guess you could say that I wasn't all that used to this author's style of writing; it was sort of different for me and it took a little while to get used to it. It felt very personal to someone--the story was one that I thought was very emotional. Sometime when I was reading this, the story was just so fascinating that I didn't want to stop. Other times, however, I got to parts that seemed...a little dull and over...more

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Aug 10, 2011 Yuki marked it as to-read

Recommended to Yuki by: RiverRun Bookstore; #mental illness

Shelves: historical-fiction, tsundoku

From bn.com excerpt: "Inside, the shock of attic, the recognition of this alternate parallel space, always suspended here, above us: a silent, cobwebbed clutter of immutability, a dark antipode to the house below, forever blustery with motion and light, with cocktail parties and children chasing one another in swimsuits. Katharine eyes the piles nearest the door: the old records, the broken gramophone, a box of withered gloves. Up here, without our choosing, things simply persist. Katharine wond...more

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Jul 12, 2011 Lolly LKH rated it 3 of 5 stars

Deeply sad and chaotic. I have read that some feel the novel dragged, and it did sometimes. That aside, I really was able to feel for both Katherine and Frederick. Katharine's life being a painful reminder that sometimes love doesn't always turn out the way it should. Frederick, after having manic episodes, is committed to Mayflower state hospital by his wife Katharine. She is left to raise their daughters alone in a time when there was still a dark stigma to mental illness. Not to say there isn...more

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Jul 08, 2011 Justin Mitchell rated it 3 of 5 stars

Very torn. I loved the sections that took place in the mental institution. In these passages, Block's amazing talent really shines. The characters of Frederick, Schultz, Robert Lowell, and Canon feel very vivid and real. Block captures the mind-set of the insane very well, showing you where their thinking and ours part ways with grace and economy. I especially loved the character of Schultz and his search for the "fundamental language"--really great stuff.

It's the beginning and the ending of the...more

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Nov 01, 2012 Jen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Stefan Merrill Block has found inspiration in his own family � he writes of his maternal grandfather, Frederick, who was committed to a mental institution for several months in 1962, and his grandmother Katharine, struggling to maintain ordinary family life for the sake of their four daughters. [return][return]The structure of the book was good; the focus switched from Frederick to Katharine intermittently, and I found that the swap always happened just at the right point, so the momentum in the...more

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Sep 27, 2011 T. Greenwood rated it 3 of 5 stars

3 1/2...I think there is much to admire about this book. The prose is lovely, and the exploration of how we define madness was really fascinating. The main issue for me was the author's insistence upon examining how the story of his grandfather's mental illness relates to his own life (the book is based upon his grandparents' story). Perhaps if he had taken this further, inserted himself more into the narrative, then those parallels would have been sharper. Otherwise, he could have simply allowe...more

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Apr 27, 2011 A. R. rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was a book I recieved from the goodreads giveaway and I liked it. It was a compelling read. It's a story about a man who suffers from bi-polar disorder who ends up being hospitalized in the early 60's for his bizarre mood swings and behavior, and his wife who has had to deal with the illness for many years. The story is based on the experiences of the author's grandparents, but he tells you in the introduction that it is a fictionalized account.

First the things I didn't like. I thought the...more This was a book I recieved from the goodreads giveaway and I liked it. It was a compelling read. It's a story about a man who suffers from bi-polar disorder who ends up being hospitalized in the early 60's for his bizarre mood swings and behavior, and his wife who has had to deal with the illness for many years. The story is based on the experiences of the author's grandparents, but he tells you in the introduction that it is a fictionalized account.

First the things I didn't like. I thought the story a bit overwritten. The style of the author is a bit cumbersome. There were many sentences that I had to read twice to understand. And if you're going to read this book, have a dictionary handy. There are so many new words, that a high school english teacher would be thrilled at the prospect of a vocab test. I'm not saying that's a bad thing - we all could use some expansion on our vocabulary. But there were enough large words that were not easy to infer meaning by context that it became distracting from the story. To me there was a large flaw in the plot, only because I was wondering the entire time how the grandson (who is the narrator) knew all the details of the story. As you read the book you will see that the information he reveals has to be mostly speculation and that makes it kind of hard to believe. Also, since the story is told through the grandson's perspective, sometimes it became confusing, almost jarring, when the grandson inserted himself or his perspective in the story.

I did like the story. It's not an uplifting read, but like I said it is compelling and sad, as a mental illness story should be. I liked how from chapter to chapter you were reading about the perspective of the different characters, one chapter being the patient, the other being the wife. I thought it portrayed a vivid look at how a mental illness can effect a family. The other characters in the hospital were interesting as well. The ending was a bit vague, but at least I walked away with a sense of closure on the story.

Overall, I think it was a good, intellectual story on an intersting topic.(less)

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Jun 23, 2011 Girls Gone Reading rated it 4 of 5 stars

Storm at the Door is pure eloquence.

There is no other way to say it. There is no other way to see it. Stefan Merrill Block grabbed me from the first sentence, and his novel still hasn’t let me go.

Using the lives of his grandparents as inspiration, Merrill Block added realism to the story, even adding his own concerns to the words. Frederick is described as a creative, very bright man. He can’t handle his inner world and the outer one, and as you read Storm at the Door you can see Merrill Block w...more

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Jul 27, 2011 Lisa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Science has only begun to navigate the complexities of the human brain, less still the human mind. But author Stefan Merrill Block has managed to create two novels exploring what happens when things go wrong in the mind, focusing not on the science but on the humanity.
Block’s debut novel, 2008’s beautifully wrought “The Story of Forgetting,” wove several stories around the theme of early-onset Alzheimer’s: not the medical aspects as much as what it means to forget, and to remember, and what such...more Science has only begun to navigate the complexities of the human brain, less still the human mind. But author Stefan Merrill Block has managed to create two novels exploring what happens when things go wrong in the mind, focusing not on the science but on the humanity.
Block’s debut novel, 2008’s beautifully wrought “The Story of Forgetting,” wove several stories around the theme of early-onset Alzheimer’s: not the medical aspects as much as what it means to forget, and to remember, and what such a disease does to the people close to the afflicted.
His second novel, “The Storm at the Door,” unspools a compelling story around mental illness, specifically, bipolar disorder when it was still called “manic depression.”
Set in the 1960, the story is loosely inspired by the lives of Block’s grandparents, Katharine and Frederick, who live a comfortable suburban family life.
But the darkness that Frederick tries desperately to hide, and control, increasingly finds its way to the surface. Then one night, faced with jail after a drunken spree, Frederick is taken by his wife and friends to a mental hospital.
At first he — and Katharine — think it will be a short stay, a time for him to “get some rest.” But as his treatment begins, both Frederick and his psychiatrist realize that there is more to his condition than exhaustion:
“The vast unknowable something: it is a consumptive, obliterating fathomlessness, but also a place of radiance, of astonishment, and of eternal complexity. And it is what Frederick senses is to blame for all his failures. Into the vacuum of itself, it has drawn everything that once seemed so simple and complicated it irreversibly. .æ.æ. All he has accomplished in his career, the birth of his daughters, the people he has tried to love: all have seemed to promise respite, something good and knowable to obstruct this vast dark thing.”
Frederick settles in at the Mayflower Home for the Mentally Ill (based on the McLean Hospital in Boston), and gets to know some of the other patients, including poet Robert Lowell (who is fictionalized in this book but did spend time in the McLean Hospital). As readers, we also get a window into the lives of the psychiatrist and his main assistant, and the politics and practices of running a mental hospital.
Block’s descriptions of the hospital, its staff, its residents and its workings are harrowing, poignant and at times quite funny. He refrains from either condescending to or romanticizing the patients, instead telling their stories in a straightforward, humane way, yet with a poetry in his language that illuminates what little beauty there is in their situations.
The book alternates between and Frederick and Katharine, peering into each of their now-separate lives.
Katharine, the “ethereal and tranquil mother, who has always been able to absorb others’ abuse with bullet-trap imperviousness,” has been left to fend for herself and her four daughters, increasingly worrying as savings run out and bills pile up. She puts on a brave face, of course — how can she not? — but the girls realize as the weeks go by that their father is not just gone for “a rest.”
Her mundane worries are not as interesting as Frederick’s travails in the hospital, but her emotions are no less deeply conveyed. The chapters set later in her life, when she wrestles with how much of the past to hold on to, strike the perfect balance of sadness and defiance.
The only problem with “The Storm at the Door” is that Block has handcuffed himself by basing it on the lives of actual people — he can’t alter the outcome and so the ending fizzles.
But the rest of the book is a brilliant look into the bomb mental illness can set off in a family, and the effects of it that can be felt even generations later.
(less)

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Jun 14, 2011 Lisa rated it 3 of 5 stars

There are a lot of words that have been used to describe this unique book based on the lives of the author's grandparents: lucid, heart-wrenching, passionate, fascinating. I would have to agree that all of those words aptly describe this book. It's also been described as a 'beautiful love story', but I have to admit I do not see it as such. Granted, I do not read a lot of books in the romance genre, but this, to me, is not what I consider a love story.

I honestly did not know what to expect befor...more There are a lot of words that have been used to describe this unique book based on the lives of the author's grandparents: lucid, heart-wrenching, passionate, fascinating. I would have to agree that all of those words aptly describe this book. It's also been described as a 'beautiful love story', but I have to admit I do not see it as such. Granted, I do not read a lot of books in the romance genre, but this, to me, is not what I consider a love story.

I honestly did not know what to expect before I started reading THE STORM AT THE DOOR. I knew the foundation for the story, but I had no idea where Stefan Merrill Block was going to take me. As I started reading, I was looking forward to getting to know the characters and connect with them. However, I was disappointed when half-way through the book, I still hadn't developed an emotional connection with either Katherine or Frederick. I had compassion for both of them on a general level but not the deep connection I was anticipating.

I believe that one reason I lacked a connection was the sterile, almost clinical writing of the author, in my opinion. The chapters alternate between Katherine and Frederick's viewpoints yet I didn't feel passion coming from either person.

That being said, the second half of the book garnered more interest from me than the first and I began to get immersed in the story, especially Frederick's experiences in the asylum and the repercussions he endured due to information he discovered about Dr. Cannon, who was in charge of the hospital.

Stefan Merrill Block shares a difficult story focusing on his grandfather's mental illness and the subsequent journey his family endured during those years in the 1960's. He brings to light that in those days people suffering from Bipolar Disorder often went untreated or were simply labeled 'mentally ill'. Late in the book, Block even reveals some similarities between himself and his grandfather.

THE STORM AT THE DOOR is a troubling look at one man's life as he dealt with mental illness and the constant guilt and doubt that it brought to his wife after committing him to a hospital for the insane. Instead of bringing her some measure of relief that Frederick was getting the help he needed, it made her question her decision and even the life she thought she had with her husband.

I'd like to thank TLC Book Tours and Stefan Merrill Block for including me in this tour. Please visit TLC's website for other stops on the tour. THE STORM AT THE DOOR will be released June 21st from Random House. (less)

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May 08, 2011 Joy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I was happy to win this goodreads "giveaway" book.

Reading this book was a little like taking a psychology class in college--by the time you have finished, you are sure you have most, if not all, the disorders, personalities, disfunctions and distortions. Everyone is crazy; no one is crazy.

Perhaps it was because the author was writing about his family, but descriptions of them and their decisions seemed very detached, it was hard to "get into" this book. I really wanted to like Katherine and/or F...more

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May 10, 2011 Andrea rated it 3 of 5 stars

I received this book through the Goodreads giveaway program and was so excited to start reading. I have to say it took me awhile to get used to the author's writing style and thus took me quite awhile to feel connected to the story.

Around page 75 or so I was finally truly interested in the characters and their outcomes. The rest of the way through I was pulled in and kept reading on thinking some big breakthrough or shocking revelation would happen. Unfortunately, I got to the end of the book a...more

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Jul 17, 2011 Ellen O'brien rated it 2 of 5 stars

The language in which this book is written makes it sound more important and richer than it is. The sentences are dense and ripe but, in the end, I was left wondering about the whole story. The author's grandfather is crazy and put into a famous mental hospital in Boston where he meets several memorable characters. My impression is that the bum was an incorrectly diagnosed alcoholic who did what alcoholics do and got sent away for it because his wife couldn't resist the decisions made by the men...more

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Jun 11, 2012 Paola rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: narrativa, imprescindibili

S. Merrill Block é un bel giovanottone, così si evince dalle foto, con un sorriso solare e bei denti bianchi ed ha appena trent’anni, nonostante ciò dispone di grande scrittura, di qualità notevole.
Ha anche una storia famigliare, almeno per quanto ne veniamo a conoscenza e per quanto é dei nonni, abbastanza singolare.
E’ vero che se guardiamo il nostro albero genealogico un picchiatello in famiglia ce lo abbiamo in tanti (per me una zia sorella di mia madre, depressa, morta per un tumore a 60anni...more

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Apr 12, 2011 Debbie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

My first Goodreads win (thank you!!) so I will dutifully do my review. I'm a reader, not a writer, so bear with me as I hope to provide something useful to someone.

Wow -- tough read but worth it! An emotional book but not one that brought me to tears (hate crying on a plane over a book...) I felt so bad for Katharine and how her life turned out. I would have liked to have had more of her story and the daughters too. We only got a glimpse of how the girls' lives were affected. But the time spent...more

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About Stefan Merrill Block

Born in 1982, Stefan Merrill Block grew up in Texas. His first novel, The Story of Forgetting, won Best First Fiction at the Rome International Festival of Literature, the 2008 Merck Serono Literature Prize and the 2009 Fiction Award from The Writers’ League of Texas. The Story of Forgetting was also a finalist for the debut fiction awards from IndieBound, Salon du Livre and The Center for Fiction...more

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“Frederick knows better than to believe, as his wife sometimes claims to, that all things happen for a reason. Things happen; it is up to us to invent for them a purpose.” — 2 people liked it

“Sometimes, the world suddenly seemed equal to what I required of it. But, otherwise, I was under the world, a cockroach-man scuttling beneath stones in filth, scrambling from the light. Or else I was above the world, as certain and mighty as a fundamental force, as electricity. The sadness of always being at a distance from things, above or else beneath.” — 1 person liked it

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