In a prose and form as startling as its content, "The Shutter of Snow" portrays the post-partum pyschosis of Marthe Gail, who after giving birth to her son, is committed to an insane asylum. Believing herself to be god, she manuevers through an institutional world both sad and terrifying, echoing the worlds of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and The Snake Pit Emily Holmes Coleman (born in Oakland, California in 1899, died in 1974 on a Catholic worker farm in New York State) was a prominent American figure in the Paris literary scene of the 1920s, and her circle in London in the 30s included Dylan Thomas and T.S. Eliot.
| ||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Emily Holmes Coleman's The Shutter of Snow presents a close study of what it was like to be treated in a 19th-century mental hospital. The innovative language and viewpoint follow the thoughts and actions of Marthe Gail, institutionalized for depression after the birth of her son. Coleman draws a brilliant picture of Gail's mind and its passage through the fog of her illness; portraits of other patients and the caretakers who attend them are equally striking. Unlike Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wall-Paper, in this startling story Marthe's husband offers loving support while she sorts through her delusions of being God and her violent behavior.
Review
"An extraordinary, visionary book, written out of those edges where madness and poetry meet." -- Fay Weldon
"Coleman has succeeded in conveying the pity and terror of the condition in a remarkable manner, without exaggeration and without self-pity or sentimentality. It is a success very rarely achieved in any kind of literature." -- The Nation and Athenaeum 12-6-30
"Seldom does one of Mrs. Coleman's background become a victim of psychosis and come back to tell the tale. Certainly there has never been a book containing such a vivid experience in the field of mental shadow as she remembers." -- Boston Transcript 8-27-30
"The book is no less graphic than it is authentic, an extremely rare achievement in the 'firsthand' document school of letters, for usually we have drama at the expense of truth, or bald facts that unwittingly falsify the picture. The Shutter of Snow is a profoundly moving book, supplying as it does a glimpse of what a temporary derangement and its consequences may mean to the sufferer." -- The Nation 12-17-30
"The quick wit which delighted Mrs. Coleman's examiners even when she was psychopathic saves her book from being too utterly depressing. The story of daily life in a ward for the insane is not likely to be merry reading, nor does Mrs. Coleman desire it to be; her intent has an obvious depth beyond that, but there are abysses into which it is hardly fair to lead the reader under the guise of the novel. The Shutter of Snow avoids these without being false to its essential tragedy." -- Saturday Review of Literature 10-11-30
Coleman's lyrical rendering of her... treatment for post-partum psychosis... fresh and immediate and, at the same time, historically revealing. -- Publishers Weekly 6-30-97
"Coleman has succeeded in conveying the pity and terror of the condition in a remarkable manner, without exaggeration and without self-pity or sentimentality. It is a success very rarely achieved in any kind of literature." -- The Nation and Athenaeum 12-6-30
"Seldom does one of Mrs. Coleman's background become a victim of psychosis and come back to tell the tale. Certainly there has never been a book containing such a vivid experience in the field of mental shadow as she remembers." -- Boston Transcript 8-27-30
"The book is no less graphic than it is authentic, an extremely rare achievement in the 'firsthand' document school of letters, for usually we have drama at the expense of truth, or bald facts that unwittingly falsify the picture. The Shutter of Snow is a profoundly moving book, supplying as it does a glimpse of what a temporary derangement and its consequences may mean to the sufferer." -- The Nation 12-17-30
"The quick wit which delighted Mrs. Coleman's examiners even when she was psychopathic saves her book from being too utterly depressing. The story of daily life in a ward for the insane is not likely to be merry reading, nor does Mrs. Coleman desire it to be; her intent has an obvious depth beyond that, but there are abysses into which it is hardly fair to lead the reader under the guise of the novel. The Shutter of Snow avoids these without being false to its essential tragedy." -- Saturday Review of Literature 10-11-30
Coleman's lyrical rendering of her... treatment for post-partum psychosis... fresh and immediate and, at the same time, historically revealing. -- Publishers Weekly 6-30-97
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
brilliant description of mental illness,
By sally tarbox (aylesbury bucks uk) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Shutter of Snow (American Literature (Dalkey Archive)) (Paperback)
Set in a 1920s American mental hospital, this tells the story of a young woman's time there following a bout of insanity after the birth of her child. Written in the 3rd person yet simultaneously as if by Marthe herself, we read of everyday life in the hospital- interchanges with the staff and other patients, activities; and in paragraphs of strange poetic prose we see inside the mind of the woman.
The title refers both to the snow that features throughout as Marthe looks out of the window; and of course to her state of mind. Coleman was inspired to write this book after her own hospitalization in similar circumstances. It's a brilliant attempt at making mental illness 'comprehensible' to the reader.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Inside This Book
(learn more)
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
(learn more)
canvas sheet Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Miss Wade, The Shutter of Snow, Holmes Coleman, Miss Baird, East Hall, West Side, Day Room, Miss Sheehan, Miss Macauley, Miss Ryerson, Strong Room, Miss Harrison, Jesus Christ, Mary Soulier, Miss Onions, Miss Wright, Miss Albert, Main Building, Miss Lanier, Miss Maude, Sarah Kemp, State of New York, Goodbye Mrs Gail, Miss Brunmark, Miss Ewing New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
canvas sheet Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Miss Wade, The Shutter of Snow, Holmes Coleman, Miss Baird, East Hall, West Side, Day Room, Miss Sheehan, Miss Macauley, Miss Ryerson, Strong Room, Miss Harrison, Jesus Christ, Mary Soulier, Miss Onions, Miss Wright, Miss Albert, Main Building, Miss Lanier, Miss Maude, Sarah Kemp, State of New York, Goodbye Mrs Gail, Miss Brunmark, Miss Ewing New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
8
books
cite this book:
See all 8 books citing this book
- Hayford Hall: Hangovers, Erotics, and Modernist Aesthetics by Sandra Chait on 23 pages
- Psychoanalysis, Psychiatry and Modernist Literature by Kylie Valentine on 5 pages
- Art Lover: A Biography of Peggy Guggenheim by Anton Gill on page 122, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Respectability and Deviance: Nineteenth-Century German Women Writers and the Ambiguity of Representation (Women in Culture and Society Series) by Ruth-Ellen Boetcher Joeres on page 86
- Mistress of Modernism: The Life of Peggy Guggenheim by Mary V. Dearborn on page 74
See all 8 books citing this book
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
