reader ð Where Madness Lies ☆ Sylvia True

“Where Madness Lies is an intimate page turner that is full of heart Engrossing and devastating this brave novel reminds us of the power of human connection and the inherent goodness of most people” – Heidi Pitlor author of The Daylight Marriage and ImpersonationGermany 1934 Rigmor a young Jewish woman is a patient at Sonnenstein a premier psychiatric institution known for their curative treatments But with the tide of eugen I highly recommend reading this despite myself not having finished it I primarily read non fiction and when I received an email about this book from NetGalley I thought it was non fiction based on the description in said email I should have paid attention The writing is beautiful and the story is excellent for as far as I have gotten However I prefer non fiction and have so many other books I am needing to read for author and publishers that I can't give this one the full attention it deserves I may come back to it some day and finish the story but for now I will have to stop

Sylvia True ☆ Where Madness Lies ebook

Where Madness Lies Meone she loves from oppressive forces both within and withoutThis is a story about hope and redemption about what we pass on both genetically and culturally It is about the high price of repression and how one woman who lost nearly everything must be willing to reveal the failures of the past in order to save future generationsWith chilling echoes of our time Where Madness Lies is based on a true story of the author’s own famil WHERE MADNESS LIESBY SYLVIA TRUEMy rating of four stars is because of this historical fiction book based in part by fact was difficult emotionally to read and take in In the synopsis it describes the subject of eugenics practiced in Germany in 1936 and euthanasia as a way of the Nazi's coping with it as having hope and redemption in this novel I do not feel that the novel offered much hope or was by any means uplifting like the historical novel I just read and reviewed called Where Butterflies Go written by Debra Doxer If you are looking for a historical novel that is about the Holocaust that offers hope and redemption along with the agonies and the ecstasies look for Ms Doxner's novel In this novel called Where Madness Lies it was very well written and compelling reading but it was very depressing in my humble opinion Nevertheless the novel is based in factual information about the author's family during Hitlers rise to power and the story must be told so that we never forget This novel reminded me of one of Diane Chamberlain's novel about the practice of Eugenics practiced in the United States in the South which was also filled with some hope but certainly love Love of family by Inga's character was certainly expressed in this novel alsoThis novel takes place in two different time periods about a grandmother from Frankfurt Germany in 1935 and 1936 about a young woman named Rigmor who suffers from schizophrenia who comes from an affluent family The other time period from which this novel alternates chapter's with is the time period of 1984 in Belmont Massachusetts in McLean's hospital which was one of the Countries most prestigious Mental hospital's with Rigmor's granddaughter Sabine who is suffering from depression with psychotic features Sabine has just had a baby girl named Mia who she is separated from when she volunteers to check in to Mclean's hospital Inga who was Rigmor's elder sister is believed to be Sabine's grandmother by SabineThe loving tenderness with which Inga treats her sister Rigmor is poignant and touching and very emotionally moving Inga studies treatments and mental illness and with her affluence is able to consult with Germany's very finest psychiatrist's who have studied the science of mental illness and what are some of the best treatments and diagnosis for 1936 Frieda who is Inga's and Rigmor's mother clearly favors Rigmor over Inga She comes across as a very domineering woman and is divorced They are from the Jewish ethnicity and a very unconventional treatment which Rigmor undergoes behind Frieda's back orchestrated by Inga results in how Sabine's existence came to be I didn't like Inga at first and found her to be very domineering like her mother Frieda but as the novel proceeds to tell both Sabine's and Rigmor's stories I grew to understand that she had a great capacity to love both Rigmor and Sabine and she tried her best to help them both in their treatmentsWhat must be noted here is that the sterilization of any human being thought to be feeble minded or mentally ill was taking place not only in Germany in 1936 and 1937 but all over the world even the United States What was being done in Germany long before the racially cleansing of the Jewish population where the death chambers being designed in Germany by gassing unsuspecting people who were mentally ill feeble minded or thieves etc in the asylums such as Sonnenstein where Rigmor was admitted to That was not what killed Rigmor but an infection that she developed after sterilization To be fair to the author she has written a well written and informative account about how Eugenics and sterilization and the gas chamber's which the children and anyone to be born with characteristics of mental illness or for example Down Syndrome were starting to be experimented on and were gassed in what these innocent's thought was simply taking a shower Except these so called showers were really chambers of carbon monoxide being pumped in This was done before gas chambers and crematoriums were erected in the concentration camps as they were first done in the asylums The families would receive a letter that their loved one died of heart failure or some other lying cause to avoid detection of the true cause of death Starvation was used also to innocent inhabitants of these asylum's for mental illness like Sonnenstein or ElfgingThe obsession of race gripped Germany under Hitler's regime Under the Nuremberg law no person's of Jewish and Aryan ethnicity were permitted to be married in 1937 and well into World War II This novel of historical significance the author claims related to her family While the author claim's that her grandmother the Jewish matriarch of the family fled to emigrate to Switzerland giving up all of her money and possessions and social status before the start of World War II for reason's much secretive and dangerous than Judaism in 1935 which was mental illness on her mother's side of the family The names have been changed and some of the details are how the author imagined them not exactly as they might have been But the bones of the story are true The author's grandmother cared deeply about her family and as an aristocrat her grandmother desperately wanted her grandchildren to master the art of refinement so that they could be accepted in the highest circles of society This is the author's grandmother's story as well as the author's My final thoughts on this well above average written historical fiction based on some factual history was ultimately hard to read and did not lift my spirits even though there were some extremely loving and tender moments shown between sister's and grandmother and granddaughter For most of the book it was interesting and impossible to put down I do think towards the last uarter I felt like the storytelling was dragging and would have been appreciated by me if it was less detailed and shortened I did find it fascinating for most of the book but I didn't feel inspired or spiritually uplifted like I did with Where Butterflies Go by Debra Doxer whose book about the Holocaust left me feeling in high spirits and wanting to recommend it to family and friend's However that is just my humble opinion and my intellect feels like this is eually important in being a part of our history that nee