You are in the delivery room in a hospital. A mother just delivered her first baby. Everyone is counting the fingers and toes and waiting to hear the baby cry its first cry to make sure it is O.K. Everyone is so intense with the well being of the newborn, no one noticed the change in the mother.

Here is a story about Marthe Gail, who goes into a post-partum psychosis after the birth of her son. She is committed to an insane asylum, where she acts out her belief that she is God. She interacts with the staff and the other clients on the ward. She works her way upstairs to a less restrictive and more quiet ward. This is a story about how Marthe maneuvers her way through the day to day routines of the institute. Marthe goes in and out of psychotic episodes throughout the book. She eventually works her way to get to go back home to her husband and baby.

The interesting turn of events is that the author is writing this while she is in the mental hospital for the same disease that she is writing about. The book is very hard to read and is very confusing throughout. The best part about the whole book was the end. When you finish the book, you will have a whole new outlook on what it is like to hear voices, have hallucinations and have racing, tangent thoughts. This author writes how she is thinking and her thoughts run wild. When you first start reading, you will feel like throwing the book away. DON’T!!! The book it terrific for the mere fact, that while you are reading it, you are lost, and don’t understand the story. There is such chaos in the reading of this book, it gives you a full understanding of the chaos that goes through some mentally ill peoples minds.

The book is awesome. I would recommend The Shutter of Snow to every psychology major in college, and everyone who has to work with post-partum or schizophrenic clients. I read the book three times, and plan on reading it again.

Categories: Fiction