The book begins with several cases from the late 1700s, about women who were deemed “insane,” ultimately given to a care institution, and never brought to trial under the law for the destructive acts they committed. “In the summer of 1789, Margaret Nicholson had tried to stab George III with a blunt dessert knife,” Appignanesi writes. She mentions this point in the section where she discusses “Madness and the Law” and how people really didn’t know what to really make of mental illness, both from a psychological point of view as well as legal. She also discusses a case with a woman named Mary Lamb, who in a moment of rage took a kitchen knife on her mother. And like Margaret Nicholson, Mary Lamb too was never brought to trial under the law.
And what of these treatments used? Have they all worked? Appignanesi delves into the many mindsets and attitudes the culture has had regarding mental illness, and how exactly it has played a role in both the inhibition and hiding of certain ailments, to also impacting them (such as the case with eating disorders) and allowing such to “fall into fashion.” Such would have been a good time to bring up individuals like Judy Garland, who was a well known “pill popper” by the time she hit her teens, and discuss exactly how such early an addiction (forced on by the studio) might have impacted depression throughout the rest of her life. Or in the case with 1930s actress Francis Farmer, who is believed to have undergone a lobotomy for her “badness” and rebellion against the era and also her mother.
Again, the fact that Appignanesi does not discuss Farmer or Garland are minor quibbles, for there are just so many women's cases, and certainly the book would have to be much longer to address most every single individual. Yet, the reason I bring this up is because Marilyn Monroe and Zelda Fitzgerald have been done to death (no pun), and although Farmer was never as big a star as Monroe, her ailments were as severe, if not more so, than Monroe’s. And the same goes for Judy Garland (not to mention she had infinitely more talent).
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