The Forgetting Place
John Burley
Morrow, Feb 10 2015, $14.99
ISBN: 9780062227409
After graduating from John Hopkins five years ago, psychologist
Dr. Lise Shields has worked at Menaker State Hospital, just south of
Baltimore. The thirtyish woman accepts
her patients are sent to this Maryland facility to be forgotten by family and
society as incorrigibly insane, but still likes her job.
However, her latest patient Jason Edwards is different than all
the others she has treated as he arrives without the usual advance notice or
medical information; her superior Dr. Charles Wagner explains Jason suffers
from a violent trauma. As Lise begins to
doubt Jason belongs at this institution, she remains the good bureaucrat except
for efforts to learn why he was sent here; which Wagner thwarts. The FBI accosts her and Lise fears either she
inherited mental illness from her Uncle Jim or someone wants her dead.
Although the key late twist seems obvious relatively early, this
is a tremendous psychological suspense that makes a solid argument that truth
and realism are in the eye of the beholder.
The engaging storyline hooks the audience with its dark melancholy
atmosphere mindful of the TV show Bedlam (sans ghosts), Lise’s troubled first
person account and Jason’s haunted history.
Harriet Klausner
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