Wildthorn by Jane Eagland

Imagine living in a time and place where you could be imprisoned for speaking your mind.  For being outside the norm.   For not conforming.

It’s not a dystopian futuristic fantasy.  It’s historical.  In Wildthorn (Houghton Mifflin, 2010), Jane Eagland tells the story of fictional Louisa Cosgrove, middle class daughter of a respected country doctor.  Her brother expects to enter the family business.  Lou is expected to marry well, like her aunt Phyllis, and spend her days fretting over curtains and making fifteen-minute courtesy calls all afternoon to the boring, snooty clients of her husband. 

But Lou wants to be a doctor.  She loves to attend her father’s rounds with him.  She studies hard, entirely on her own, from the books in his library.  And with the opening of the London School of Medicine for Women, she finally has a chance.  Until her father dies.  And the rest of her family, from her jealous, selfish brother to her loving, free-spirited aunt, thinks her dreams are ridiculous.  And she is sent away to be a companion.  To forget her dreams.

But she ends up in a mental institution.  Locked away under another name.  Witness to brutality.  Drugged.  With no explanation or hope for escape.

Eagland describes the bleak atmosphere of a 19^th century mental institution with precision and grace.  Her eye for historical accuracy is keen and her dedication to the truth unwavering.  It is not pretty.  She has meticulously researched the science of medicine at the time, as well, giving Lou all the knowledge she needs and nothing more.  She finds her way through the drugs and procedures of the institution by her senses – a process I found fascinating.  The reader gets a true sense of life in Victorian England.

As Lou discovers the truth behind her incarceration, she also navigates her way into a tender romance – one that breaks conventions.  But then, Lou is an unconventional girl.  And that’s what makes her story compelling.

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