Faces in the Water by Janet Frame

[Diane]

Rating: 4 Stars
Read: May 2017

This is a fictionalized memoir of Istina, a young woman living in various wards of two different psychiatric hospitals during the 1950s. It is thought to be semi-autobiographical since the author spent several years as a psych patient following a nervous breakdown. Istina lived in fear of the less than humane treatment and radical therapies, such as electric shock therapy, insulin shock therapy, and lobotomies. The reader never learns why she is there or why she receives the treatment that she does.

The writing is beautiful and poetic, despite the harsh and heartbreaking subject matter. It is scary to think how much of this story might actually be true. This book is definitely worthy of its place on the list.

[Gail]

I found this book to be stunning in its ability to capture the fear and dislocation of a patient in a "mental hospital" during the 1950's. We know that the patient is unable to cope with the outside world but we are not made privy to the specific reasons for her being in the hospital. We also do not often get insights into any behavior that reflects illness once she is a patient although there are times when others make reference to her behavior. We are however, given huge insights into her day to day life and her fears and her conflicts, particularly in regards her treatment by the nurses and her so called therapies. Therapies in the 1950's were only marginally better than in the 1590's it would seem. The doctor's had no time for individual patients, so Electric Shock Therapy, Insulin Therapy and Lobotomies appeared to be the only treatments other than being told to "pull it together" or being bribed into good behavior with sweets. The author really portrayed the horror of losing oneself in an immediate and personal way while also being able to express the comfort brought by a visiting mouse and the warm delight of the sun on one's face.
Incredible writing. I would like to read other works by this New Zealand author.

[Patrick]

*** 1/2

A very bleak, semi-autobiographical portrait of "life" in mental asylums (as they used to be known) in the late 40s-50s in New Zealand at a time where people were treated just a notch better than animals and where lobotomies, electric shock treatments and insulin therapies were performed on a very dubious and arbitrary decision process. Things do improve a tad towards the end, when the medical profession starts to realise that better outcomes might be achieved if they were treating the patients as human beings. It was hard to read without wincing. Best to avoid if your own mental health is not that great.