Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

I recently read a book that I found so riveting I couldn't put it down, and now that I finished it, I want to go back and read it again. I checked it out from the library, but I have my own personal copy on its way from Paperback Swap. The idea that women, or anyone else for that matter, could be confined in a mental institution all their life when they are not mentally ill is just mind boggling. You can read a synopsis here: http://booksthatmatter.blogspot.com/2006/10/vanishing-act-of-esme-lennox.html Also be sure to read the Guardian article that is cited in that blog entry.

I had wanted to read it for some time. It was published in the UK earlier in the year, but was just recently published in the U.S. I just can't get it out of my head.

I was reminded of the book this morning when a woman came to use the microform machines to copy a school census of a woman who was at the Gainesville State School in 1932. The woman said she was the grandmother of her daughter-in-law and had been confined to the state school because she was an unwed mother. The girl was 16 at the time and her baby was born 4 months after the census was taken and given up for adoption. They had been unable to access the adoption records of the baby, but had the baby's mother's name and found it that way. The woman was also telling me that at time, children could be sent to the state school on the parent's admittance that they were "unruly." This was so similar to what happened in the Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox , even though that book too place in Scotland, and this other story in Texas. In the unwed mother's case, she only stayed there until after the baby was born and then was let out of the state school.