Customer Reviews

Breaking Out of Bedlam: A Novel

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At eighty-two, Cora Sledge's worst nightmare has come true. Obese, drug-addled and cantankerous, Cora's rabid independence is struck a fatal blow when her three adult children descend upon her filthy house, discovering a refrigerator filled with moldering food and hidden caches of pills, Cora's lifestyle grown more troubling with each passing year. Cowed by her children's outrage and disgust, Cora is soon ensconced in The Palisades, an assisted living facility that is little more than a concrete bunker for housing the elderly. Institutionalization at its most frightening, Cora's place at The Palisades consists of a small room and bath, the sliding glass door on one wall offering a view of the loading docks and a steady stream of low-paid workers pushing laundry carts back and forth.

But as we learn from the pages of Cora's diary, this is a woman with an indomitable spirit, married at seventeen and hiding a painful secret all the long years of her life. After a few weeks in bed, drugged to insensitivity by the pills she has managed to sneak into the facility, Cora resists the siren call of oblivion as she explores the limitations and conditions at her new home, where "the walkers and wheelchairs make a slow-motion stampede for the dining room" and the halls smell of incontinence and despair. There are few friends here- certainly not her table mate, "Poison Ivy"- but a respiratory therapist offers enough kindness to spark Cora's flagging spirit. Decreasing her drug intake, Cora is inspired to shed the weight as she unburdens her soul of a lifetime of sorrows.

It is difficult to describe this novel: frightening, because what happens to Cora in her old age could happen to any of us; joyful, because her indomitable spirit suggests that regardless of the body's deficiencies, the soul refuses to be extinguished; sad, because Cora is a foolish woman who still believes in love and romance; and uplifting, because the author has distilled the essence of her character into someone the reader can identify with. We learn Cora's deepest secret in the quirky language of a farm girl who moved to Detroit at the height of the Depression and later to sunny California, the blunt remarks of a woman who always speaks her mind and the fears that riddle the old and infirm. Cora is a survivor, spunky, sly and stubborn, up to one more round with the children she raised, determined to finish out her days on her terms before she greets the Grim Reaper. Luan Gaines/2010.

From the first page you will be drawn into Cora's life - told from within with searing humor and terror. 82 year old Cora is each of us - and who we could and may be. When she is placed in a 'home' for her own good by her kids - each of whom we also could and may be - her world is turned inside out. In her new home her only friends are a small journal where she begins recording her present fury and secret past - and one of the nurses who dislodges phlegm and dispenses tenderness in equal quantities. You will be giggling and appalled at Cora's stubborn blindness to what is happening around her and her stubborn brilliance as her past and present converge in the very last pages. This is a must read and must share.

Breaking Out of Bedlam tells the story of Cora Sledge, an obese, pill-popping, crusty 82-year-old woman whose children have just had her put in The Palisades, an assisted living facility where the tenants range from seniors who still take fitness classes to, as Cora puts it, "the droolers." This book could have been so depressing, but it was anything but. It could also have been silly and disrespectful to the elderly...also neither of those things. Instead, it was an engaging look at how - no matter what our age or circumstances - people still crave to have love, excitement and a life worth living.

The book is written as a journal that Cora is writing, and in it she both talks about the day to day happenings at The Palisades and also about her life growing up. There are secrets in both. I found myself unable to put the book down wondering what was going to happen next. I loved several characters, especially a male nurse she befriends. A scene where Cora - who because of her age and weight can't walk very far - decides to go to the other side of the facility to find a man she's romantically interested in was unforgettable in the way the author made a trek across a building seem like a trip across the desert.

I'm kind of surprised this book isn't getting all the buzz some others are... I hope it catches on because I'd like to see more from this author. I will be recommending it to my book club.

I LOVED Cora, the main character. She's outspoken, gutsy, and tells it like it is. The descriptions of the assisted living center where she lives and the characterizations of the other "inmates" there are hilarious. It's not often a writer can make you feel all the highs and lows of her characters, but this author has succeeded.
If you enjoyed "The Help" by katherine Stockett, you will probably enjoy this. Both books have strong main leads who take us to places we may not have encountered. Both have right-on dialects and compelling plot lines. They're not great literature, but both books grab your heart immediately and end way before you're ready to leave.

Leslie Larson knows the language of fun and heartache and keeps us laughing and crying at the same time. This heroine has the spunk that we all would like to have, and the brains to pull it off. What a trip!

As an elder advocate and former long term care Ombudsman I have some familiarity with Bedlam. I came across the book by chance in our public library and subsequently bought two copies. I recommend it to all professionals I know working to improve elder care in California. Leslie Larson captures brilliantly how grown children's views of what is "best for mother", or "Dad", can be so misaligned with an elder's right to choose. She does this with great humor and elicits our sympathy for her heroine Cora who is not, on the surface, an attractive person. Written as Cora's journal we grow to love and admire Cora as her life story evolves interleaved with her day to day life in the long term care home. I recently had the privilege of hearing Ms. Larson read two passages from the book at a fund raiser for Alzheimer's Services of the East Bay. Read aloud, the description of Cora's first love, serving her at the soda fountain in the small town drug store, had us all nodding her heads as the picture came vividly to life. Like all truly great novels this one demands more than one reading.

While this novel is entertaining and hilarious in part, it allows for serious thoughts about elderly stereotypes of single living, widowhood and sex. The novel reveals the often insensitive attitudes and treatment of the elderly by families and assistant living/nursing homes. A good read, well paced and superbly written. The main character Cora is wonderful and unforgettable -- a strong, but fragile and vulnerable individual. The story leaves us seniors feeling a little vulnerable too, but also triumphant.

Saw this in the bookstore, read the first page, bought it, and didn't put it down until I'd finished. I got lost in the writing and the story and fell in love with Cora, the main character. Even though the novel's set in an assisted care facility, it isn't depressing at all. Writing's great, too. A big thumb's up.

I enjoyed Leslie Larson's Breaking Out of Bedlam so much! I love the main character of Dora, her quirky and true insights, her voice. I was rooting for her all the way. The mystery is also intriguing, and the way it plays itself out. The author doesn't tip her cards, she shows us just enough to keep us interested. And the metaphors, on every page, perfectly in tune with the narrator's voice, and so fresh! What a terrific novel! Funny, moving, different. It has it all.

This book is a page-turner. It is funny while it captures the realities of a person who doesn't want to lose her independence and her children who feel like they are doing what is best for her when they put her in an assisted living facility. Cora's life is tragic and inspirational. This is a must read for anyone who is a parent or a child.