Guests On Earth (Wheeler Publishing Large Print Hardcover) - Hardcover

Smith, Lee

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1410466035 ISBN 13: 9781410466037

Publisher: Wheeler Publishing, 2014

Synopsis

A young orphaned piano prodigy in 1936 is admitted to a North Carolina mental hospital under the care of a celebrated doctor and receives innovative treatment based on exercise, diet and art therapies alongside Zelda Fitzgerald. (historical fiction).

About this title

From the Back Cover:

“Reading Lee Smith ranks among the great pleasures of American fiction . . . Gives evidence again of the  grace and insight that distinguish her work.” ―Robert Stone, author of Death of the Black-Haired Girl

It’s 1936 when orphaned thirteen-year-old Evalina Toussaint is admitted to Highland Hospital, a mental institution in Asheville, North Carolina, known for its innovative treatments for nervous disorders and addictions. Taken under the wing of the hospital’s most notable patient, Zelda Fitzgerald, Evalina witnesses cascading events that lead up to the tragic fire of 1948 that killed nine women in a locked ward, Zelda among them. Author Lee Smith has created, through a seamless blending of fiction and fact, a mesmerizing novel about a world apart--in which art and madness are luminously intertwined.

“An elegant historical novel . . . [Smith’s] use of Zelda as a subject is brilliant . . . A carefully researched, utterly charming novel. By the time you finish it, you fall in love with these fascinating lives, too.” ―The Washington Post

“Lee Smith shines new light on a shadowy, complex subject . . . She offers a broader historical perspective--and with it, a captivating, inimitable voice.” ―The Raleigh News and Observer

“Perennially best-selling Smith presents an impeccably researched historical novel that reveals the early twentieth century’s antediluvian attitudes toward mental health and women’s independence.” ―Booklist

“A testament to Lee Smith’s legendary gifts as a novelist.” ―Knoxville News Sentinel

“Guests on Earth unfolds with a sense of urgency that feels both fabulous and deeply personal.” ―Bobbie Ann Mason, author of The Girl in the Blue Beret

“Engaging and engrossing . . . Smith’s well-developed characters, rich historical detail and easy prose create a novel that some may call her best yet, and which it just may be.” ―Minneapolis Star Tribune

From the Inside Flap:

"The insane are always mere guests on earth, eternal strangers carrying around broken decalogues that they cannot read.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald

Evalina Toussaint, orphaned child of an exotic dancer in New Orleans, is just thirteen when she is admitted to Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. The year is 1936, and the mental hospital is under the direction of the celebrated psychiatrist Dr. Robert S. Carroll, whose innovative treatment for nervous disorders and addictions is based upon fresh air, diet, exercise, gardening, art, dance, music, theater, and therapies of the day such as rest cures, freeze wraps, and insulin shock. Talented Evalina is soon taken under the wing of the doctor’s wife, a famous concert pianist, and eventually becomes the accompanist for all musical programs at the hospital, including the many dances and theatricals choreographed by longtime patient Zelda Fitzgerald.

Evalina’s role gives her privileged access to the lives and secrets of other patients and staff swept into a cascading series of events leading up to the tragic fire of 1948 that killed nine women in a locked ward on the top floor. She offers a solution for the still-unsolved mystery of that fire, as well as her own ideas about the very thin line between sanity and insanity; her opinion of the psychiatric treatment of women and girls who failed to fit into prevailing male ideals; and her insights into the resonance between art and madness. A writer at the height of her craft, Lee Smith has created, through her masterful melding of fiction and fact, a mesmerizing novel about a world apart—a time and a place where creativity and passion, theory and medicine, fact and fiction, tragedy and transformation, are luminously intertwined.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wheeler Publishing
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1410466035
• ISBN 13: 9781410466037
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 499