T. Greenwood has earned many awards and accolades for her profound and piercing stories, and her recent novel Keeping Lucy is certainly another welcome notch in her career.
The novel tells a story inspired by true events, following a mother who sets out to rescue her daughter Lucy, born with Down Syndrome, from a special school which turns out to be a real hell on Earth... sending her down the path of becoming a fully-fledged fugitive.
T. Greenwood Explores the Fortitude of a Mother
Our understanding of mental illness might be at a peak today and still climbing onward, to the point where it becomes a little too easy to forget just how quick and exponential this progress has been over the past few decades. Methods approved and used in the sixties and seventies to treat and manage the mentally-disabled would seem borderline barbaric to many of us, and we would do well to remember just how much harm has been caused upon these innocents in the name of science, progress, perceived personal benefits... you name it. In her novel Keeping Lucy, T. Greenwood takes us to the heart of a story revolving around a mother and her daughter born with a disability.
As the book opens in 1969 we are introduced to Ginny Richardson, mother to the titular Lucy, born with Down Syndrome. Ginny's husband Ab comes from a powerful family, and they have been exerting all sorts of pressure on Ginny to give up her daughter and send her away to Willowridge, a special school for children with her condition. Ultimately, Ginny relents and tries to believe she did everything for the best, with Ab insisting they treat her daughter as if she were dead and try to move on.
This whole situation lasts for approximately two years, until Ginny's friend Marsha shows her a series of articles which expose Willowridge as a hellish nightmare filled with under-cared and neglected children living in squalid conditions. Naturally, Ginny knows she can't leave her daughter in such a place, and with her six-year-old son at her side as well as Marsha, she sets out to free her daughter from the clutches of an obviously corrupt and inept institution.
When they arrive and see it all for themselves, Ginny can't help but tear her daughter away from it all and going on the run from her family as well as the authorities. From Massachusetts to Atlantic City, the long journey as a fugitive gives Ginny all the time in the world to reflect on what she is doing, and it really means to be a mother.
A Profound Social Rot
While the story in this book might only be “based on a true story”, it definitely talks about a phenomenon present in real society to this very day: the mistreatment of the mentally ill. As a matter of fact, the school of Willowridge is based on a true “school for the feeble-minded”, as it was called, and borrows quite a bit from reality. In other words, don't think the issues portrayed in this book are grossly exaggerated or a thing of the past; our understanding of mental illness may have risen, but on the whole, many proponents of the old school still exist and we still have much more to learn.
T. Greenwood has definitely done a large amount of research on this subject, and she takes many opportunities to explore how mentally-ill people have and are being treated by society as well as their immediate families. I should warn you now, this book has a fair amount of heavy and harrowing content, especially when you consistently remind yourself just how much it mirrors our real world. It is eye-opening, extremely informative, and profoundly sad through and through... especially the segments relating to the treatment of babies and toddlers.
I was particularly taken marked by the meticulous way in which the author described Ab's reasoning to put Lucy away and how his family exerted pressure for it to happen... an occurrence which I can only assume happened far too often. Greenwood does a fantastic job at capturing the logic these people used to justify these vile actions to themselves, while still making them seem like lost and misguided human beings, rather than outright evil-doers... this role is reserved for the staff and management of Willowridge.
Good Woman on the Lam
As heavy as this book might be on social commentary and criticism, it still has a tense, engaging and constantly moving plot which did a commendable job at drawing me in and keeping me glued in spite of all the darkness and horror it puts us through. Ginny is an amazing protagonist to follow, being resourceful, resolute when necessary and displaying a tremendous emotional depth in a time many were lacking it. This is the type of character I simply cannot imagine anyone cheering against, and it's always a pleasure when you don't have to wrestle with your perception of the protagonist.
Her journey as a fugitive across the country is actually pretty fun in and of itself, if you look away at the reason for it in the first place. Along the way we drive through many beautiful locations which present a welcome contrast to the obscurity cast on everything by the subject matter. We also meet many interesting people along the way, all of them having stories which, if they don't relate to the main topic, at least serve to colour the world built by the author, teaching us a little more about the times and the prevalent social norms.
There is even quite a bit of tension in the book as Ab's family and the police chase after Ginny, and events unfold a couple of paces faster than I expected. After reaching around the third quarter of the book, I felt the intensity was cranked up even higher, with there always being this uncomfortable feeling as to what might await Ginny at the end of it all. She can't be a fugitive forever, and she can hardly stand up on her own against the forces of those days... it doesn't take long before we start to wonder, is a happy ending even possible? I'll let you discover this on your own... it's definitely worth it.
The Final Verdict
Keeping Lucy by T. Greenwood is a remarkable novel capable of deliver thrills, laughs and intelligent social commentary about one of the more alarming and heart-breaking topics in our modern world. I highly recommend this book to anyone interesting in the treatment of the mentally-ill by our society as told in a compelling fictional story which combines elements of thrillers and family life fiction alike.
 | T. GreenwoodPersonal site T. Greenwood is an author who has the distinction of having received grants from the Sherwood Anderson Foundation, the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the Maryland State Arts Council. She has won four San Diego Book Awards, and her novel Bodies of Water was a finalist for the Lamba Foundation award. Some of her better-known novels include Where I Lost Her, Keeping Lucy and The Forever Bridge. |
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