The Snake Pit

By Mary Jane Ward,

Book cover of The Snake Pit

Book description

Vintage book


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Why read it?

1 author picked The Snake Pit as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This is the 75th anniversary edition of a book first published in 1946, a best-seller at the time, and the impetus for changes in the treatment of psychiatric patients. The narrator, novelist Victoria Cunningham, finds herself incarcerated in a corrupt and badly-run hospital with little memory of how she got there; I was disturbed by the way she had to navigate through an obscure, nonsensical bureaucracy that seems more insane than any of the hospital’s patients. Virginia is supported by her loving and loyal husband, but at times she loses track of her memories and forgets who he is.…

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