Madwoman, the third novel by Louisa Treger (The Lodger), is a compelling portrait of 19th-century journalist Nellie Bly. It re-creates in intense detail one of her greatest stunts: feigning mental illness to gain entry to the infamous asylum on New York City's Blackwell's Island.
Born Elizabeth Jane Cochran in the Pittsburgh suburbs, Bly bore the childhood nickname "Pink" for the color her mother always dressed her in, although she preferred to emulate her older brothers. Treger convincingly traces Bly's ambitions back to childhood: from her mother she inherited storytelling skill and from her father, a judge, commitment to truth and justice. Her mother's misery with a violent second husband sensitized Bly to others' pain and cemented her determination not to marry. A budding journalist with a pen name, Bly wrote articles on slum life and working women.
Over a third of the novel reconstructs her 10 days on Blackwell's Island in 1887. Conditions were horrendous: inadequate clothing, disgusting food and brutal treatment. Only her resolve to expose systemic abuses and exonerate her new friends, Tillie and Sofia--committed for fragile health and adultery, respectively--kept her going through what equated to torture. Her resulting New York World series prompted reforms to the care of the mentally ill. Difficult as it can be to read claustrophobic scenes of mistreatment, Treger uses them to illuminate how the incarcerated might lose track of time and, if not mentally ill to begin with, be driven mad by cruelty. Recommended for fans of feminist historical fiction. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader and blogger at Bookish Beck