First published 1968
Bill Plantagenet lies strapped to a bed in Bellevue Hospital's psychiatric ward. The alcoholic British writer arrived here after a breakdown on the streets of New York City. Around him, other patients struggle with their own demons while doctors attempt treatments that seem as chaotic as the illnesses they address. Plantagenet observes the ward's brutal routines and encounters fellow inmates whose stories mirror his own fragmented mental state. He recalls fragments of his past life, his drinking, and the events that led to his commitment. As he navigates the institutional machinery designed to cure him, Plantagenet questions whether sanity means conformity to a world that may itself be insane. The hospital becomes both prison and refuge, a place where the boundaries between patient and staff, madness and clarity, blur beyond recognition.
Genres: american-fiction, addiction, 20th-century, mental-illness, psychological-thriller
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Bellevue Hospital, New York City
Period: 20th-century
78 pages · Hardcover · CAPE. LONDON 1968
Content warnings: addiction, alcohol-abuse, mental-illness