Admissions

by Jennifer Sowle

Stripped, showered and drugged, Luanne Kilpi's life as wife and mother is turned upside-down as she enters the world of the insane. After her attempted suicide following the death of her three-year-old son, Luanne is admitted to the Traverse State Hospital where she now lives with locked doors, long hallways, gowns, moans and shouts, restraints, pills, little fluted cups and a sparse tiny bedroom. She is an "Admission." On Hall 5, the reader is introduced to the group of young women who become Luanne's friends and support. We see the realities of their conditions and watch them struggle through muddled emotions to make sense of their world.

Author Jennifer Sowle's lyrical prose illuminates Luanne's raw emotions of overwhelming grief as she struggles on her journey from despair to hope. Set on the expansive grounds of the State Hospital, vivid imagery brings to life a cast of characters from the duty nurses to the groundskeeper to the chronically ill patients.

This is a book that makes you stand up and cheer for the resiliency of the human spirit.

232 pages, Paperback

First published June 2, 2010

About the author

Jennifer Sowle is a practicing clinical psychologist in Traverse City, Michigan. She has coauthored two non-fiction books and has written many professional articles.

Admissions is her first novel.

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Reviews

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thankfully times have changed. The novel follows 5 women who have been admitted to the Traverse City State Hospital in the mid 1960s. Group counseling, labotlomies and early generation mind drugs are used in therapy, with some success. The good and the bad are presented and offer an insight into the times and the state hospital. Sensitive, and it held my interest. I see why it has sold so well.

[Connie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so sad in so many respects. The healthcare system at the time. Mental health care- throw pills at it. The attitudes of the staff toward the patients made me so angry. Unfortunately, it happens more than one would like to believe. I know that healthcare in all of its forms has improved, but mental health is still so out of reach for so many people. At least the main character got better and was able to move on.

[Cindy Koch-Krol · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a very flawed book. She has too many characters, I could only keep the groundskeeper and the Main character straight. She relies too much on dialogue and does not include enough description. My reason for reading this book is that I wanted to use the Traverse City State Hospital as a location for my own novel, so I bought all the books I could find that had anything to do with it. But I found myself speed-reading through the dialogue scenes because there was nothing there to slow me down, no actual action. Very late in the book, there was a scene where one of the patients holds a nurse hostage, but it was too little too late.

I cannot recommend anyone read this. In fact, I would recommend the author to rewrite it. But before you do, read some books on plotting, or even websites. And do some reading as well. Read some books by Margaret Atwood, Kristen Hannah, Anne McCaffrey, and Dean Koontz. Notice how they handle characters.

I could give all kinds of advice to this author, but not here I guess.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I heard about this book through a tour guest at the Traverse City State Hospital. It definitely held my interest. The fictionalization was well documented, but it straddled the line of believability because of the references to real places.

[Sarah Blodgett · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars really.

[Charlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished this first novel from Sowle. The story starts out with the main characters "admission" into a Michigan mental hospital after her attempted suicide and the death of her son. And in the tradition of great novels like One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and Girl, Interrupted we get a glimpse at the sometimes shocking conditions of mental intitutions from years ago. This quickly turns into a well-written, very personal story about a woman dealing with her grief while forging some new friendships inside the women's unit. The story was gripping and the characters expertly realized. I really enjoyed the book and hope to read more from the author some day soon!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. I love the Traverse City area and the former State Hospital is fascinating to me. I love the history of the place and what they are doing with it now instead of letting it fall into ruin. The story was a well written story and I really liked the characters. The best part is that it isn't all perfectly tied up with a bow at the end.

[Michelle Belcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this one. An interesting yet sometimes uncomfortable read about life in a ‘mental’ hospital in the 60’s. I warmed to all the characters and felt I lived their journey with them at times.

[Susan Call · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book with the sole intention of finding more about an asylum in my home state of Michigan. The Traverse City Asylum actually was a Psychology field trip made by several of my siblings during the course of their education in high school. Not having gone there, this book was a true revelation of what transpired behind locked doors. This was a quick read. It brought up a lot of emotions as you follow the main characters journey from the day she enters until the end.