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W-3
“For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin—real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business; time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life could begin. At last it had dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”
In 1968, Bette Howland was thirty-one, a single mother of two young sons, struggling to support her family on the part-time salary of a librarian; and laboring day and night at her typewriter to be a writer. One afternoon, while staying at her friend Saul Bellow’s apartment, she swallowed a bottle of pills. W-3 is both an extraordinary portrait of the community of Ward 3, the psychiatric wing of the Chicago hospital where she was admitted; and record of a defining moment in a writer’s life. The book itself would be her salvation: she wrote herself out of the grave.
In 1968, Bette Howland was thirty-one, a single mother of two young sons, struggling to support her family on the part-time salary of a librarian; and laboring day and night at her typewriter to be a writer. One afternoon, while staying at her friend Saul Bellow’s apartment, she swallowed a bottle of pills. W-3 is both an extraordinary portrait of the community of Ward 3, the psychiatric wing of the Chicago hospital where she was admitted; and record of a defining moment in a writer’s life. The book itself would be her salvation: she wrote herself out of the grave.
206 pages, Hardcover
First published August 29, 1974
78 people are currently reading
2039 people want to read
About the author
Bette Howland
9 books43 followersWriter, critic, and MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient Bette Howland died last week at the age of 80. “No matter what her subject is, Mrs. Howland is always looking for the bone and marrow of Chicago,” Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote in a 1978 review of Blue in Chicago. “And always the prose with which she searches is arrhythmical, nervous, self-questioning, passionate. You can’t fall into step with her, because the moment you do she shifts her cadence and takes off for another part of town, another time, another thing about Chicago.” However, though much awarded and clearly brilliant, she has in recent years been more-or-less forgotten by the literary establishment. “What happened to a career that held such talent and promise?” A.N. Devers asked in a 2015 piece about Howland and her rediscovery by Brigid Hughes, Howland was nomadic and often lived in isolation. Why did she retreat from what she had earned for herself? What role has the literary community played in allowing her work to fall from memory? Her son Jacob thinks the MacArthur is part of the answer.” Indeed, she didn’t publish anything else after winning the award.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews
June 11, 2021
Incredibly sad, harrowing, dark look at life on a Psych Ward - the insights are innumerable, and Howland's prose sparkles. Dated, in some ways, but as a time capsule of life on a ward, this is a remarkable book. The arc from admission to leaving is well mapped, and the characters - especially Trudy - are extremely notable.
March 14, 2021
I loved it. It leaves me with the sense of having been in W-3 with her. She describes characters and situations in a way that make you feel as if you'r there, and told in a memorable way.
She speaks to a friend who thinks she does not belong in W3 and thinks she should leave, pick up her life. And she thinks: "But I sensed something wrong with such arguments now. I had almost died. That was the indiscreet and the undisguisable fact...I had almost laid myself down in my grave. Where were all these good opinions then? What use had they been? What difference did they make to me?
The gist of all the pep talks is that you can help yourself; You can straighten up, buckel down, fly right. But what if there never comes a moment when you can't? And that's the momento you have to be prepared for. Pep talks are no good then. There's no arguing with the enemy-the enemy has arguments of its own. More tender, more persuasive. They come to you as your thoughts, they speak to you as friends. They whisper, they infiltrate, take up their positions in the dark. Not a shot needs to be fired."
She speaks to a friend who thinks she does not belong in W3 and thinks she should leave, pick up her life. And she thinks: "But I sensed something wrong with such arguments now. I had almost died. That was the indiscreet and the undisguisable fact...I had almost laid myself down in my grave. Where were all these good opinions then? What use had they been? What difference did they make to me?
The gist of all the pep talks is that you can help yourself; You can straighten up, buckel down, fly right. But what if there never comes a moment when you can't? And that's the momento you have to be prepared for. Pep talks are no good then. There's no arguing with the enemy-the enemy has arguments of its own. More tender, more persuasive. They come to you as your thoughts, they speak to you as friends. They whisper, they infiltrate, take up their positions in the dark. Not a shot needs to be fired."
June 24, 2021
W-3 is a fascinating, poignant and thought-provoking memoir of Bette Howland’s suicide attempt, subsequent time spent in a psychiatric facility in the 1970s and the vivid account of a brilliant mind on the brink. In 1968, Bette Howland was thirty-one, a single mother of two young sons, struggling to support her family on the part-time salary of a librarian; and labouring day and night at her typewriter to be a writer. One afternoon, while staying at her friend Saul Bellow’s apartment, she swallowed a bottle of pills. W-3 is both an extraordinary portrait of the community of Ward 3, the psychiatric wing of the Chicago hospital where she was admitted; and a record of a defining moment in a writer’s life. The book itself would be her salvation: she wrote herself out of the grave. For its brevity, this is a remarkably powerful memoir with a cast of characters - Trudy, Zelma and Frankie - who are beautifully painted but exhibiting the type of behaviour you would expect in such a place.
Howland writes in such a tender, scalpel-sharp fashion using pin-eye perceptiveness to bring to life the institution and those around her; surprisingly she explores her own situation much less than I had anticipated giving a broad view of the situation within the ward. She narrates the steady passage of time as a patient charting her friendships with those who also reside there and matters as straightforward as their moods, attire, families, yearnings and objections. There's heart and soul, humanity and humour packed within these pages in a feat of daring imagination and a refreshingly original examination of mental illness written in a frank, touching and admirably candid fashion given the stigma attached to it as a taboo at the time. A mesmerising, spirited and omnipotent piece of writing about institutions penned with sardonicism and deftness of touch, and despite its relative age it is still as timely and relevant today as it was then. Highly recommended.
Howland writes in such a tender, scalpel-sharp fashion using pin-eye perceptiveness to bring to life the institution and those around her; surprisingly she explores her own situation much less than I had anticipated giving a broad view of the situation within the ward. She narrates the steady passage of time as a patient charting her friendships with those who also reside there and matters as straightforward as their moods, attire, families, yearnings and objections. There's heart and soul, humanity and humour packed within these pages in a feat of daring imagination and a refreshingly original examination of mental illness written in a frank, touching and admirably candid fashion given the stigma attached to it as a taboo at the time. A mesmerising, spirited and omnipotent piece of writing about institutions penned with sardonicism and deftness of touch, and despite its relative age it is still as timely and relevant today as it was then. Highly recommended.
January 16, 2021
My review for the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
https://www.startribune.com/review-w-...
Saul Bellow — an early champion of her remarkable literary talent — called Bette Howland "one of the most significant writers of her generation." In 1968, when Howland was 31 years old, raising two kids as a single mom on her librarian's salary, and staying at his apartment, she swallowed a bottle of pills in a suicide attempt that landed her in the psychiatric ward of a Chicago hospital.Originally published in 1974, Howland's "W-3" is a slim, witty and uncompromising memoir of this event and this place, as well as their pivotal impact on her life as an author. "I wanted to abandon all this personal history — its darkness and secrecy, its private grievances, its well-licked sorrows and prides — to thrust it from me like a manhole cover," she explains of her mind-set at the time of her attempt.
That, she adds, was "what I hoped to obliterate." Instead, she took this experience's grim revelations and created this volume, her debut book, one that proved to be her personal and literary deliverance.
As Yiyun Li — who has written movingly of her own mental illness — notes in the introduction, "it can be read as an encyclopedia of life in a psychiatric ward, written from within a mental turmoil yet with preternatural omniscience." Li also serves as an editor of A Public Space, the Brooklyn-based publisher committed to bringing Howland's landmark work back into print, a project they began with "Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage," a 2019 reissue of her best short stories.
Structured less as a self-portrait and more as a mosaic, Howland tells the stories of her fellow patients with astuteness and empathy. She contextualizes the late 1960s milieu — with its ubiquitous racism and misogyny — in which she and her peers had become ill and were now attempting to get well.
Calmly, coolly, she recounts the astonishing sexism of the medical profession that had dismissed her troubles: "After my first child was born, I had a howling postpartum depression and my husband sent me to a psychiatrist. After one session the psychiatrist told me (1) that I should watch television, 'it's a good outlet'; (2) the only reason I wanted to be a writer was to control other people; (3) the dream which troubled me so much — the spilled milk — was an obvious sexual fantasy."
Although Howland and the residents of W-3 are given to understand that their time in this institution will save them, Howland wryly punctures the myth that true salvation is within anyone's reach, sane or not. "The gist of all pep talks is that you can help yourself; you can straighten up, buckle down, fly right," she writes. "But what if there comes a moment when you can't? And that's the moment you have to be prepared for."
With its incisive humor and unsparing descriptions, "W-3" refuses a tidy resolution, instead showing how all the "clumsy, good intentions" in the world can't always provide a cure for the horror and tedium of losing one's mind.
https://www.startribune.com/review-w-...
Saul Bellow — an early champion of her remarkable literary talent — called Bette Howland "one of the most significant writers of her generation." In 1968, when Howland was 31 years old, raising two kids as a single mom on her librarian's salary, and staying at his apartment, she swallowed a bottle of pills in a suicide attempt that landed her in the psychiatric ward of a Chicago hospital.Originally published in 1974, Howland's "W-3" is a slim, witty and uncompromising memoir of this event and this place, as well as their pivotal impact on her life as an author. "I wanted to abandon all this personal history — its darkness and secrecy, its private grievances, its well-licked sorrows and prides — to thrust it from me like a manhole cover," she explains of her mind-set at the time of her attempt.
That, she adds, was "what I hoped to obliterate." Instead, she took this experience's grim revelations and created this volume, her debut book, one that proved to be her personal and literary deliverance.
As Yiyun Li — who has written movingly of her own mental illness — notes in the introduction, "it can be read as an encyclopedia of life in a psychiatric ward, written from within a mental turmoil yet with preternatural omniscience." Li also serves as an editor of A Public Space, the Brooklyn-based publisher committed to bringing Howland's landmark work back into print, a project they began with "Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage," a 2019 reissue of her best short stories.
Structured less as a self-portrait and more as a mosaic, Howland tells the stories of her fellow patients with astuteness and empathy. She contextualizes the late 1960s milieu — with its ubiquitous racism and misogyny — in which she and her peers had become ill and were now attempting to get well.
Calmly, coolly, she recounts the astonishing sexism of the medical profession that had dismissed her troubles: "After my first child was born, I had a howling postpartum depression and my husband sent me to a psychiatrist. After one session the psychiatrist told me (1) that I should watch television, 'it's a good outlet'; (2) the only reason I wanted to be a writer was to control other people; (3) the dream which troubled me so much — the spilled milk — was an obvious sexual fantasy."
Although Howland and the residents of W-3 are given to understand that their time in this institution will save them, Howland wryly punctures the myth that true salvation is within anyone's reach, sane or not. "The gist of all pep talks is that you can help yourself; you can straighten up, buckle down, fly right," she writes. "But what if there comes a moment when you can't? And that's the moment you have to be prepared for."
With its incisive humor and unsparing descriptions, "W-3" refuses a tidy resolution, instead showing how all the "clumsy, good intentions" in the world can't always provide a cure for the horror and tedium of losing one's mind.
January 17, 2016
This was an intense read, almost claustrophobic in the manner in which almost all of the novel takes place inside an institution. The writing is narrative and dark, mostly external descriptions of the other occupants, and their multiple meetings, questionable reasons for being on the inside, and quirks. My only wish was more internal development of the protagonist. But the book also reminded me of my own Aunt Rita, who's mental health was a challenge for her entire life. And the sadness of her four marriages, three kids, and numerous institutional visits. How that tore up my mother, her only sister. And for that, and more, I recommend this book.
April 9, 2021
This was no easy time in Chicago. Early 1970's were difficult. And this memoir represents a narration for a 1st person experience by a woman sequestered to a mentally ill ward part of it. Right away I knew it was University of Chicago from the gargoyles/ Gothic she described. Yes, IMHO, it's worse ghetto around it now. Others disagree. Good Thai food does not equal "good" safe neighborhood normal to me.
This is a dark, oppressive read. I don't really recommend it unless you want to know what W-3 life is about in detail. Mentally ill with other mentally ill in morning rounds to tray time hijacks. The constant fight for clothing. It was NOT that different at other hospitals I have worked in or nearby to this era either. Little Company had the same "get some clothes over there" problem. Still might. That's why you end up seeing patients wearing shorts and t-shirts in January. You mainly come in and don't get to know ahead of time to pack a bag.
It's anxious sad and very real. The writing is a 5 for accuracy and tone/feeling/nuance context. I just now read the low rated reviews, a few of them. This is NOT about why they are hospitalized or what each mental illness contains or becoming "fixed" or given prognosis information at all. It's about her (Bette Howland's) personal experience of comprehension for the time she witnesses what she witnesses and experiences in 1973.
It was reprinted with an excellent Introduction. Usually I do not read those but this time I did. It is not overlong, and gives you a better picture for emotive cognition and pure logical sense or physicality for/of Bette Howland.
This is a dark, oppressive read. I don't really recommend it unless you want to know what W-3 life is about in detail. Mentally ill with other mentally ill in morning rounds to tray time hijacks. The constant fight for clothing. It was NOT that different at other hospitals I have worked in or nearby to this era either. Little Company had the same "get some clothes over there" problem. Still might. That's why you end up seeing patients wearing shorts and t-shirts in January. You mainly come in and don't get to know ahead of time to pack a bag.
It's anxious sad and very real. The writing is a 5 for accuracy and tone/feeling/nuance context. I just now read the low rated reviews, a few of them. This is NOT about why they are hospitalized or what each mental illness contains or becoming "fixed" or given prognosis information at all. It's about her (Bette Howland's) personal experience of comprehension for the time she witnesses what she witnesses and experiences in 1973.
It was reprinted with an excellent Introduction. Usually I do not read those but this time I did. It is not overlong, and gives you a better picture for emotive cognition and pure logical sense or physicality for/of Bette Howland.
August 12, 2022
Heb mij hier echt moeten doorsleuren en heb veel stukken gewoon geskipt. Was echt niet wat ik verwachtte en in mijn ogen had het zoveel interessanter kunnen zijn: was een heel saaie, langdradige verhaallijn, sprong van hier naar daar, moeilijk te volgen, geen goede beschrijving van de personages/patiënten, nope did not like it at all
January 14, 2021
“Fran’s recovery wowed the other inmates who witnessed it, wowed all the doctors. (For the hospital was a teaching institution, and our doctors were new to it themselves, in training, here to observe.) A patient like this vindicated all the theories about the therapeutic effects of showers, combs, lipstick, and social activities. It was a victory for the public spirit of our ‘community.’ Fran’s behavior could be accounted for by all these textbook equations — yes, yes, as the visible motions of the fixed planets could be explained by the epicycles of Ptolemy. In due time most of us would acquire more adequate clothes; we would fatten up on the starchy hospital food, get some sleep on the carefully rationed pills, calm our anxieties or inner violence with drugs, i.e., we would ‘get better.’ And it was not that the theory contradicted the facts — it just didn't link up with them. They could have hurtled forever through outer space and never reached that point of rendezvous.”
February 21, 2024
psych ward canon
the part where they made them all draw names and impersonate eachother was crazy
the part where they made them all draw names and impersonate eachother was crazy
January 21, 2021
For a long while I have been wanting to read a book written by a Chicago author about Chicago - there doesn’t seem to be that many. So, I saw a review of the re-issue of this book - in Chicago by a Chicagoan, a young single mother who experiences a breakdown, and takes place in W-3, the mental ward at the University of Chicago hospital in 1973. I had to read it and ended up pre-ordering it on Amazon so that I could read it the moment it came out without waiting for the book to ship.
At the start of the book we meet the author in the hospital and we find out later in that she had attempted suicide by swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills but this book is not really about her. She is an observer of the other patients in her ward. It’s a bit like an anthropological study of mental institutions in the early 1970s.
A very good book. Public Space issued another one of Howland’s books and I’ve already ordered it.
At the start of the book we meet the author in the hospital and we find out later in that she had attempted suicide by swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills but this book is not really about her. She is an observer of the other patients in her ward. It’s a bit like an anthropological study of mental institutions in the early 1970s.
A very good book. Public Space issued another one of Howland’s books and I’ve already ordered it.
October 29, 2022
Beautifully written and gripping tale of one woman's mental ward in 1968. But so much racism, othering, sizeist, ableist, and classist commentary delivered with little awareness. Being of its time can only account for so much. Howland is a sneaky narrator, lurking at the very edges, rarely on the page, preferring to spotlight those around her. Very sharp, often funny, frequently tragic.
May 18, 2022
Prachtig verslag van Howland's tijd in een inrichting, en de vriendschap en solidariteit die patiënten delen. Door de simpele, poëtische taal en verrassende beelden deed dit me denken aan Tove Ditlevsen. Jammer dat vertaler Barbara de Lange niet op het omslag staat.
December 4, 2022
3.5 rounded up.
September 19, 2022
"Muchos momentos me recordaban a la infancia. ¿Qué otra cosa cabía esperar? Nos comportábamos como niños, nos trataban como a niños, los agravios que sufríamos eran los agravios que sufren los niños, las mismas pequeñas traiciones. (¿Por qué seguían hablándome como si no los oyese?). Y se entendía que nuestra enfermedad misma estaba relacionada con la infancia -la marmita burbujeante de todos nuestros males-. Por nuestros pecados se nos había devuelto. Éramos como niños. Y nuestra infantilidad se daba por hecha. Era la realidad vergonzosa de nuestras vidas vergonzosas; tuvo que transcurrir mucho tiempo antes de que me diera cuenta de qué iba todo. De que los niños que teníamos dentro no eran más que nuestros propios yoes perdidos."
Esta novedad de la joven editorial Tránsito (este mes cumple cuatro años ¡y yo me estreno ahora!) no podía llegar a mis manos en mejor momento, cuando estoy haciendo lecturas sobre la enfermedad mental.
"El pabellón 3" es el debut de Bette Howland publicado originalmente en 1974, después olvidado y ahora traducido por primera vez al castellano. Cuenta lo que vivió (o lo que vio) en su año de ingreso en el W-3, el pabellón psiquiátrico del Hospital Universitario de Chicago, a finales de los sesenta. En este sentido es como un "Alguien voló sobre el nido del cuco" desde la propia experiencia. Para las amantes de los relatos autobiográficos, hay que tener en cuenta que Howland se basa en sus observaciones para trazar un relato sin sentimentalismos de una galería de personajes entrañables. A medida que nos cuenta sobre ellos, deja caer recuerdos y reflexiones que nos acercan un poco a la propia autora, pero no hay en ningún momento ninguna catarsis personal. Esa no es su opción. Esto no es una crítica negativa, sino simplemente una advertencia lectora. Porque Howland es tan inteligente y escribe tan bien que quiero leer todo lo que haya escrito y cómo haya decidido hacerlo.
Bette Howland, ¡qué descubrimiento! Por favor: ¡traducid todos sus libros!
Esta novedad de la joven editorial Tránsito (este mes cumple cuatro años ¡y yo me estreno ahora!) no podía llegar a mis manos en mejor momento, cuando estoy haciendo lecturas sobre la enfermedad mental.
"El pabellón 3" es el debut de Bette Howland publicado originalmente en 1974, después olvidado y ahora traducido por primera vez al castellano. Cuenta lo que vivió (o lo que vio) en su año de ingreso en el W-3, el pabellón psiquiátrico del Hospital Universitario de Chicago, a finales de los sesenta. En este sentido es como un "Alguien voló sobre el nido del cuco" desde la propia experiencia. Para las amantes de los relatos autobiográficos, hay que tener en cuenta que Howland se basa en sus observaciones para trazar un relato sin sentimentalismos de una galería de personajes entrañables. A medida que nos cuenta sobre ellos, deja caer recuerdos y reflexiones que nos acercan un poco a la propia autora, pero no hay en ningún momento ninguna catarsis personal. Esa no es su opción. Esto no es una crítica negativa, sino simplemente una advertencia lectora. Porque Howland es tan inteligente y escribe tan bien que quiero leer todo lo que haya escrito y cómo haya decidido hacerlo.
Bette Howland, ¡qué descubrimiento! Por favor: ¡traducid todos sus libros!
July 13, 2021
I would like to point out that I read the republished 2021 edition of this book which includes the excellent introduction by Yiyun Li. Ms. Li begins her introduction by making a brief comment and distinction between "forgetting" and "not remembering", which I found to be a very interesting comment and something I never thought about until she mentioned it. In addition, Ms. Li notes that the book is, "Less personal than a conventional memoir - Howland herself occupies minimal space - ....". I believe anyone considering reading this book should take this comment to heart. That is probably my main complaint about this book; it was about everyone else in the psychiatric ward (W-3) rather than about herself. I'm telling you, the jacket cover provided more of a summary of the author and what happened than the actual book.
As I was progressing thru the book I kept thinking, at some point I'm going to find out why she is there and what lead to her breakdown. But that point never came. There are only vague references to her personal situation. I found this to be frustrating. Isn't the point of a memoir to be about yourself?? I have read many other memoirs about individuals with mental health issues that are excellent and I could list several that I would recommend before this one. It is unfortunate since I had read about this republication of the book which was originally written in 1974 and had gone out of print. According to the blurb I read it was "rediscovered" and it was "a gem", a "real find", etc. Therefore, I had high hopes; but unfortunately, was disappointed.
It is a short book and I thought I would breeze through it, but I found about halfway thru I was not even sure I wanted to finish it. The other patients in the ward were not that interesting to me since you don't know their backgrounds either and what landed them there, it was hard to be invested in them as characters. At least that is what I felt.
But to end on a more positive note, it is very well written and the author provides keen, detailed observations about her fellow patients in the ward. It is oftentimes funny with very witty quips about the goings-on in a psychiatric ward in 1974.
As I was progressing thru the book I kept thinking, at some point I'm going to find out why she is there and what lead to her breakdown. But that point never came. There are only vague references to her personal situation. I found this to be frustrating. Isn't the point of a memoir to be about yourself?? I have read many other memoirs about individuals with mental health issues that are excellent and I could list several that I would recommend before this one. It is unfortunate since I had read about this republication of the book which was originally written in 1974 and had gone out of print. According to the blurb I read it was "rediscovered" and it was "a gem", a "real find", etc. Therefore, I had high hopes; but unfortunately, was disappointed.
It is a short book and I thought I would breeze through it, but I found about halfway thru I was not even sure I wanted to finish it. The other patients in the ward were not that interesting to me since you don't know their backgrounds either and what landed them there, it was hard to be invested in them as characters. At least that is what I felt.
But to end on a more positive note, it is very well written and the author provides keen, detailed observations about her fellow patients in the ward. It is oftentimes funny with very witty quips about the goings-on in a psychiatric ward in 1974.
October 20, 2025
Me gusta la literatura que se sumerge en la mente, en el trastorno, en las zonas opacas del yo. Por eso tenía muchas expectativas con Pabellón 3. Sabía que no iba a ser una lectura ligera: una autora que escribe desde su propia experiencia dentro de un hospital psiquiátrico no puede ofrecer una mirada superficial. Y no lo hace. Pero, a pesar de eso, no ha terminado de brillar para mí.
Hay algo en el tono, en la forma de narrar, que me ha resultado más plano de lo que esperaba. Como si la fuerza de lo vivido no acabara de traducirse en una experiencia literaria intensa. Me ha interesado, me ha conmovido en momentos, pero no me ha atravesado.
No sé si es el ritmo, o quizás que la voz de la narradora mantiene una distancia que me ha dificultado la conexión emocional. A ratos sentía que estaba más en un informe poético que en una confesión íntima, y eso me dejaba fuera.
Aun así, hay algo valioso en el gesto de escribir desde el margen, desde la fragilidad, desde el encierro. Hay escenas que se quedan, imágenes que dicen mucho sin necesidad de elevar el tono. Pero como conjunto, no ha conseguido convertirse en esa lectura transformadora que esperaba, sobre todo siendo un tema que, por lo general, me atrapa.
Una obra con valor, sin duda. Pero que, al menos para mí, ha quedado en la frontera entre el interés y la verdadera intensidad.
Hay algo en el tono, en la forma de narrar, que me ha resultado más plano de lo que esperaba. Como si la fuerza de lo vivido no acabara de traducirse en una experiencia literaria intensa. Me ha interesado, me ha conmovido en momentos, pero no me ha atravesado.
No sé si es el ritmo, o quizás que la voz de la narradora mantiene una distancia que me ha dificultado la conexión emocional. A ratos sentía que estaba más en un informe poético que en una confesión íntima, y eso me dejaba fuera.
Aun así, hay algo valioso en el gesto de escribir desde el margen, desde la fragilidad, desde el encierro. Hay escenas que se quedan, imágenes que dicen mucho sin necesidad de elevar el tono. Pero como conjunto, no ha conseguido convertirse en esa lectura transformadora que esperaba, sobre todo siendo un tema que, por lo general, me atrapa.
Una obra con valor, sin duda. Pero que, al menos para mí, ha quedado en la frontera entre el interés y la verdadera intensidad.
Read
January 3, 2025Being long forgotten, this book was "found" and republished in a journal dedicated to obscure women writers. It's a terrifyingly good memoir of the authors' time at a psychiatric ward. It's about madness, sanity, the psychiatric complex, relationships, death and life. All told in powerful, insightful portraits of the many people in the ward - patients and doctors alike. One of those titles I would only recommend to a very particular reader, or perhaps no one ever - mostly because of how deeply hopeless it can be. And this was a debut! Very impressive.
October 29, 2025
This took me forever. I dreaded reading it. I just didn’t buy into any of the characters or their stories. I found it most endearing when the narrator spoke from her perspective, but most of the time she just recounted other people’s interactions or described their “lore.” Where was her story? Why was it just a book of people watching? Couldn’t get into this. Sorry.
December 19, 2023
Dolorós, dur i punyent.
Un cop, o més, de puny a l'estómac.
Que gran que era Bette Howland.
Un cop, o més, de puny a l'estómac.
Que gran que era Bette Howland.
December 10, 2022
Vaig triar esta lectura perquè una de les ‘blurbs’ de la contra apuntava que era “dolorosa com Lucia Berlin”. I sí, confirmo que m’hi he trobat una mirada crúa i lúcida sobre coses terribles, com en la literatura de Berlin. Com m’enganxa este relatar asèptic i gairebé objectiu d’allò que passa per davant d’una, gairebé com si es tractés d’un narrador càmera. Una manera diferent de descriure l’abisme i exorcistar la foscor, quan la realitat és massa dura per a no imaginar-la.
“La imaginació és l’única manera d’experimentar la vida.” B. H.
“La imaginació és l’única manera d’experimentar la vida.” B. H.
May 5, 2021
Great job author, I really like your writing style. I suggest you join NovelStar’s writing competition, you might be their next big star.
June 20, 2024
Esto fue un caos.
El tema no podía ser más interesante: una mina intenta suicidarse pero se salva y, previa internación en el hospital, termina en un neuropsiquiátrico. Yo estaba 100% enganchando con la premisa.
Y después empiezo a leer el libro.
Arranca a full con los divagues filosóficos introspectivos de la mina durante la internación, pero bueno, es el comienzo. La mina tiene dos hijos; su única mención es una vez que los ve a través de una ventana y literalmente un párrafo al final. ¿Es interesante qué piensa "una loca" sobre sus hijos? Re. Pero no para esta autora.
Esta autora, sin ningún tipo de linealidad ni interés profundo por las historias personales de sus compañeros de pabellón, cree que más interesante contar momentos (ni siquiera anécdotas). Una vez dos pacientes se quedaron despiertas para ver a un chongo del otro lado de la puerta. Una vez un paciente arrastró las sillas. Una vez una engordó y la ropa le quedó chica y la regaló. Una vez una armó todos los bolsos decidida a irse y se quedó el día entero esperando.
Sé, o quiero creer, que hay una intencionalidad detrás de decidir contar su estadía de esa manera. Sólo que a mí no me interpela, no me interesa, me hace perder por completo el interés. Me estás reduciendo la historia de cada paciente a una página y media de algo que hizo una vez.
El otro problema es el catastrófico uso de la puntuación. Varias veces por página tuve que releer oraciones porque, el uso de las comas -y los guiones (o los paréntesis (había paréntesis adentro de paréntesis) como ahora) era confuso-. Y si lo hacía en medio de un diálogo, chau, el Ulises era más fácil.
Capaz la mina lo hizo adrede para alienar al lector y transmitir la confusión que ella sentía estando en el S-3... pero no lo creo. Creo que simplemente era una gran historia arruinada por todo lo demás.
El tema no podía ser más interesante: una mina intenta suicidarse pero se salva y, previa internación en el hospital, termina en un neuropsiquiátrico. Yo estaba 100% enganchando con la premisa.
Y después empiezo a leer el libro.
Arranca a full con los divagues filosóficos introspectivos de la mina durante la internación, pero bueno, es el comienzo. La mina tiene dos hijos; su única mención es una vez que los ve a través de una ventana y literalmente un párrafo al final. ¿Es interesante qué piensa "una loca" sobre sus hijos? Re. Pero no para esta autora.
Esta autora, sin ningún tipo de linealidad ni interés profundo por las historias personales de sus compañeros de pabellón, cree que más interesante contar momentos (ni siquiera anécdotas). Una vez dos pacientes se quedaron despiertas para ver a un chongo del otro lado de la puerta. Una vez un paciente arrastró las sillas. Una vez una engordó y la ropa le quedó chica y la regaló. Una vez una armó todos los bolsos decidida a irse y se quedó el día entero esperando.
Sé, o quiero creer, que hay una intencionalidad detrás de decidir contar su estadía de esa manera. Sólo que a mí no me interpela, no me interesa, me hace perder por completo el interés. Me estás reduciendo la historia de cada paciente a una página y media de algo que hizo una vez.
El otro problema es el catastrófico uso de la puntuación. Varias veces por página tuve que releer oraciones porque, el uso de las comas -y los guiones (o los paréntesis (había paréntesis adentro de paréntesis) como ahora) era confuso-. Y si lo hacía en medio de un diálogo, chau, el Ulises era más fácil.
Capaz la mina lo hizo adrede para alienar al lector y transmitir la confusión que ella sentía estando en el S-3... pero no lo creo. Creo que simplemente era una gran historia arruinada por todo lo demás.
February 4, 2021
"To suffer for nothing, for nothing—that is the real onus of mental illness."
July 18, 2022
Interessante memoires die vooral focussen op wat rond Howland gebeurt en minder op haarzelf. Beschrijvingen van hoe het eraan toe gaat in Ward 3, afgewisseld met enkele rake inzichten over mentale gezondheid en overleven in de psychiatrie.
October 31, 2022
I think this book was well done and a very good depiction of life on a psychiatric ward and mental illness. I just couldn’t make myself like it.
April 10, 2021
I am a little unclear where exactly I learned of this book - other than it was recently in the 'bookish' press as the independent publisher, A Public Space, republished it this past January as part of their rediscovering 20th century women writers project.
W-3 is a locked psychiatric ward at a Chicago university hospital that Bette Howland was at after she attempted to kill herself by taking a bunch of sleeping pills. Howland's memoir is funny and sorta hopeless, compassionate and honest. Howland published the book in 1974; I was 12 and it had been 7 years since my own mother's nervous breakdown. She didn't recover as well as Howland but she did survive. And that in the end is pretty much Howland's point - it is hard and lonely but the vast majority of us just want to survive. But some just end up going to a state hospital.
There is something about the book that feels very 1970's, Alice Neel, feminist but I can't quite describe it. One of Howland's best talents is her ability to capture portraits of people that are snarky but kind.
A non-representative passage that I wanted to capture:
W-3 is a locked psychiatric ward at a Chicago university hospital that Bette Howland was at after she attempted to kill herself by taking a bunch of sleeping pills. Howland's memoir is funny and sorta hopeless, compassionate and honest. Howland published the book in 1974; I was 12 and it had been 7 years since my own mother's nervous breakdown. She didn't recover as well as Howland but she did survive. And that in the end is pretty much Howland's point - it is hard and lonely but the vast majority of us just want to survive. But some just end up going to a state hospital.
There is something about the book that feels very 1970's, Alice Neel, feminist but I can't quite describe it. One of Howland's best talents is her ability to capture portraits of people that are snarky but kind.
A non-representative passage that I wanted to capture:
"But I only had orgasms a few times," Trudy burst out suddenly. "Just a few times! Almost never!" And here the throat bulged, the big painted mouth crumpled bitterly; she lowered her face and hung her head. I heard her whimpering: "Never. Never."
I was stunned . This was textbook. Can it be that she only read it somewhere? I wondered, gazing at the rows of dim faces, the scrawled sign on the wall; Trudy's shining, quivering blond head.
"YOU MUSTN'T SAY SUCH THINGS TRUDY. IT'S NOT APPROPRIATE." Blanche patted her lips with her paper napkin; sympathy always made her stiffen.
It's not appropriate. The very words we heard most often - performed with reverence, a kind of obeisance, foreheads touched to the ground. And yet invariably applied. as now, with reckless inaccuracy. What Trudy just said seemed to me all too appropriate. Like a dictionary definition, one of those thick tomes in Zelma's room; the attributes of a case history with some Latin name. It was hair raising. You mustn't say such things Trudy, I thought looking at her stricken, downcast face, suddenly afraid for her. No you mustn't say such things. It can't be that your life is an open-and-shut book.
Trudy only wept for a moment though. Trudy never did anything, even weep, for more than a few minutes at a time. This too was instructive. It was obvious that Trudy was a classic case, some sort of a classic. Her self-revelations were so predictable as to leave you speechless. Trudy was not less candid with herself. But classic is just a nice word for stereotype. Could it be that the reluctance of the rest of us to express ourselves, reveal ourselves - in the same way that Trudy was everywhere expressing and revealing herself- was simply a fear of this? a suppression of stereotypes? If we spoke our hearts at last would the words come out - like slugs of type?
August 8, 2023
W-3 evokes pathos amid the gloom and murkiness of a psychiatric ward in a big city hospital. Committed following a suicide attempt, Bette Howland finds herself amid the pariahs, outcasts and rejects of society. It's a disaster for a woman who counted Nobelist-to-be Saul Bellow as a friend. Howland herself would go on to win the MacArthur "genuis" grant. The composition of W-3 helped draw Howland out of the grime and onto an accomplished career as a writer and editor.
Two of Howland's most memorable ward mates are Cootie and Trudy. Cootie is a near catatonic. She talks to nobody, keeps her head down and responds to no stimuli. Simone, another inmate, makes it her personal project to draw Cootie out. After it finally happens, the first and perhaps only glimmer of light shines on W-3 until Howland herself is discharged, vowing never to return to visit the inmates.
Indeed, the book is incredibly sad. Trudy's family drops off her belongings, hoping never to see its daughter again because she is such an embarrassment. Another inmate hopes to be committed to Idlewild, the state mental asylum, because that facility is more comfortable than the hospital. The other wardmates are listless, spiritless and withdrawn.
There is no thematic parallel between Ken Kesey's great One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest and W-3. It is more realistic. W-3 has none of the politics, rebellion and violence. But there is some commonality. Both show the bodily fluids, the rumpled sheets, the whispers. And in both there is the constant pressure on inmates to assemble in groups and talk.
Amid this gloomy atmosphere, Howland writes with wit and sardonic insight. W-3 is a gloomy ward in a gray city, but out of the vomit, yellow wax and midnight flashlight beams came a superb writer. It helped ensure her place in the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame -- quite an achievement for an inmate of a psychiatric ward.
Two of Howland's most memorable ward mates are Cootie and Trudy. Cootie is a near catatonic. She talks to nobody, keeps her head down and responds to no stimuli. Simone, another inmate, makes it her personal project to draw Cootie out. After it finally happens, the first and perhaps only glimmer of light shines on W-3 until Howland herself is discharged, vowing never to return to visit the inmates.
Indeed, the book is incredibly sad. Trudy's family drops off her belongings, hoping never to see its daughter again because she is such an embarrassment. Another inmate hopes to be committed to Idlewild, the state mental asylum, because that facility is more comfortable than the hospital. The other wardmates are listless, spiritless and withdrawn.
There is no thematic parallel between Ken Kesey's great One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest and W-3. It is more realistic. W-3 has none of the politics, rebellion and violence. But there is some commonality. Both show the bodily fluids, the rumpled sheets, the whispers. And in both there is the constant pressure on inmates to assemble in groups and talk.
Amid this gloomy atmosphere, Howland writes with wit and sardonic insight. W-3 is a gloomy ward in a gray city, but out of the vomit, yellow wax and midnight flashlight beams came a superb writer. It helped ensure her place in the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame -- quite an achievement for an inmate of a psychiatric ward.
June 26, 2022
Incredibly sad but confusing … is this really what a psych ward looks like? People coming and going of their own free will, i.e., walking the streets, running errands for the inmates, invading each other’s spaces even whey they are supposedly in isolation?
For the most part, the writing is excellent; I found it thought provoking and fascinating … written with compassion, heart and humor. But, it’s also very dark and oppressive.
The only thing mentioned about Betty, however, is her suicide attempt – there’s not a lot of insight as to why she was suicidal. She’s described as being “thirty-one, a single mother of two young sons, struggling to support her family on the part-time salary of a librarian; and laboring day and night at her typewriter to be a writer.” Not exactly sure why that would compel someone to end their life? There must be thousands of Bettys in similar circumstances who don't suffer a breakdown. It was never made clear why she had a breakdown … I hoped for a revelation that never came.
The medical profession took a huge hit, mostly reduced to bumbling interns who didn’t really care and nurses who were more interested in keeping a schedule. Doctors only served as the ones who determined where patients might go. Inmates were treated more as character studies and, with few exceptions, tended to be very one-dimensional and cartoonish.
In my version there was a brief introduction by Yiyun Li and she notes (correctly) that the book is "Less personal than a conventional memoir - Howland herself occupies minimal space - ...." I guess I’m mystified why the book has found new purchase with today’s audience. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest might have done it better?
For the most part, the writing is excellent; I found it thought provoking and fascinating … written with compassion, heart and humor. But, it’s also very dark and oppressive.
The only thing mentioned about Betty, however, is her suicide attempt – there’s not a lot of insight as to why she was suicidal. She’s described as being “thirty-one, a single mother of two young sons, struggling to support her family on the part-time salary of a librarian; and laboring day and night at her typewriter to be a writer.” Not exactly sure why that would compel someone to end their life? There must be thousands of Bettys in similar circumstances who don't suffer a breakdown. It was never made clear why she had a breakdown … I hoped for a revelation that never came.
The medical profession took a huge hit, mostly reduced to bumbling interns who didn’t really care and nurses who were more interested in keeping a schedule. Doctors only served as the ones who determined where patients might go. Inmates were treated more as character studies and, with few exceptions, tended to be very one-dimensional and cartoonish.
In my version there was a brief introduction by Yiyun Li and she notes (correctly) that the book is "Less personal than a conventional memoir - Howland herself occupies minimal space - ...." I guess I’m mystified why the book has found new purchase with today’s audience. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest might have done it better?
November 4, 2023
Like Susanna Kaysen, author of Girl, Interrupted, Bette Howland spent some time during the 1960s in a psychiatric ward. Bette Howland woke up in an intensive care unit, have swallowed an overdose of sleeping pills. From there, she is transferred to W-3, a public psychiatric ward in an underfunded Chicago hospital. Unlike the world Kaysen describes in Girl, Interrupted, this ward does not cushion its inhabitants from the outside world: overflowing with people, it is a place where the poor and down-and-out are sent for stints of twelve days, in which time they are supposed to overcome acute mental illness. Howland, being white and having a family who can pay for her to stay for a longer period, is in a position of relative privilege, though she too has nowhere but the ward to call home, and endures the over-crowded, sleepless and noisy spaces of the hospital. The comparisons I'm making to Girl, Interrupted are not meant to reflect negatively on either work: I admire both these books, but it's impossible not to compare them to one another, as they explore an experience that is both similar and very different. Howland's work is concerned with what she witnesses while on the ward: she does some exploration of her own life, but the bulk of her writing concerns the other patients, and the treatment they receive. W-3 is a place where no one can thrive, or heal, but it does provide a kind of shelter and a place of change for the patients. Not everyone can get better, but within the pressures and tensions of the ward, some people are able to find a way to get back to the outside world. A moving and necessary book that captures many different experiences that can lead to a psychiatric hospital.
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