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Girl, Interrupted is a memoir by Susanna Kaysen. In the book she relates her experiences as a patient in a psychiatric hospital in the 1960s. The memoir's title is taken from the Vermeer painting, Girl Interrupted at her Music.
In 1999, the memoir was used as the basis for the film Girl, Interrupted, starring Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie, and directed by James Mangold.
Plot of Girl, Interrupted
The "plot" of Girl, Interrupted does not follow a linear story line, but instead the author provides personal stories through a series of nonchronological vignettes and personal reflections on why she was institutionalized.
Susanna Kaysen, eighteen-years-old in April of 1967, voluntarily enters McLean Hospital, in Belmont, Massachusetts, after attempting suicide. Kaysen is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, and her stay extends eighteen months.
Fellow patients Polly Clark, Lisa Rowe, Georgina Tuskin, and Daisy Randone highlight Kaysen’s experience at McLean as she describes their personal issues, insanities, and how they come to cope with the time they must spend in the hospital. Kaysen also introduces the reader to particular staff members, including Valerie, Dr. Wick and Mrs. McWeeney.
Kaysen reflects on the nature of her illness, including difficulty making sense of visual patterns, and suggests that sanity is a falsehood constructed to help the "healthy" feel "normal." She also questions how doctors treat mental illnesses, and whether they are treating the brain or the mind.
During her stay, Kaysen undergoes a frightening period of depersonalization, where she bites open the flesh on her hand after she becomes terrified that she has "lost her bones." Also, during a trip to the dentist, Kaysen becomes frantic after waking from the general anesthesia and no one will tell her how long she was unconscious. She fears that she has "lost" time.
Some years after leaving McLean, Kaysen visits Georgina, now who is married and still quite unconventional. Kaysen bumps into Lisa outside of a subway station, who has a boy and lives in Brookline. Daisy commits suicide, and Polly’s whereabouts are unknown.
External links
"Girl, Interrupted"