Book: Where Madness Lies
Author: Sylvia True
Rating: 4 Out of 5 Stars

I would like to thank the publisher, Top Hat Books, for providing me an ARC.

I normally am not a fan of books told in two different time periods with different characters. However, this one did leave me very interested. I found the parallels between the two main characters to be very interesting and very engaging. I also thought it was a nice touch that the two women were related and that everything did come together in the end. To me, this is a the mark of a well planned out and well thought out story. To have everything come together in a way that makes sense just shows me what type of author Sylvia is.

I found the women’s stories to be very interesting. The first one takes place in Nazi Germany, which we all know from history is not the nicest place in the world. However, by allowing us to see the horrors first hand through the characters, we get a sense of what the Nazi rule was really like. We get to see the sickening nature and the horrors that people had to go through. The things that this book talks about are very dark and disturbing. The most disturbing part of it all is that this did actually happen to people. I know these characters aren’t real and all, but they are based on real people and this story is based on real events. Whenever you look at it like that, it adds an even darker look at the book. It just brings it home and makes you really stop and think about just how cruel history can be.

Then, we get another woman going through mental illness in the 1980s. The differences and the similarities as the 1940s are kind of shocking. We still see that kind of frowned upon nature and the lack of support, but, at least, in the 1980s, she isn’t facing death or anything like that. Just to see how people are trying to have a normal life with mental illness but lacking the support and the talk of society is just hard. I know we are a little bit more open about mental illness today, but a lot of this still holds true. The 1980s timeline still features a lot of negative ways that society views mentally ill people. We get to see this woman deal with people not thinking she can take care of herself, her baby, her husband threatening to take everything away her, and so much more. We get to see her internal struggle as she deals with coming to terms with her own mental illness and the lack of support that she has. This all exists today and it’s so sad that people still have to go through with this.

The fact that Sylvia was able to get this much out of me just tells me what kind of an author she is. I could tell that this is something very close to her and that she spent a lot of time and thought into researching this book. I’m not saying this just because the publisher sent me an ARC. I mean what I say. I loved how this book made me feel-even though it wasn’t all good. This is what I want from my books. I want feel something from what I am reading-if it is horror. Congrats on making me feel something!
Anyway, I highly recommend that you check this book out and other books by this publisher. I have been working with them over well over two years now and I have not been disappointed by anything that they have put out.

This book comes out on February 1, 2021.

Youtube: https://youtu.be/q2Ju27oYL3w

I have read up to the 25% point in this book and unfortunately, I am finding I am not enjoying the story. I think it is because of the two time lines and the fact that these two stories seemed to be so drawn out with too much detail. Perhaps someday, I will once again pick it up, but right now it is not the right time and place.

Thank you for forwarding this story to me.

Where Madness Lies is a study of how mental illness and the stigma around the mentally ill affects a family. Inga loved her sister, Rigmor, and did what she thought was best for Rigmor. Unfortunately, there were few good options and many of Inga’s best intentions go awry. Inga recruits a young psychiatrist to help Rigmor with tragic results. With the Nazi program of sterilizing and eliminating the mentally ill looming, Inga is forced to make decisions that she will later regret. When her granddaughter, Sabine, checks herself into a psychiatric hospital, Inga gets another chance to care for her loved one, and hopefully, make better choices.

More than a story of what it is like to have a mental illness, this novel is the story of the people who love and care for mentally ill people. It is an insight into the powerlessness and confusion a family can experience as they try to navigate a world of experimental treatments and secretive institutions. By contrasting life in a psychiatric hospital in 1934 and in 1984, we see how treatments have improved, but many things have stayed the same. Families still confront the stigma of mental illness and have to deal with their own shame.

This is not a light read and it took some time to settle into the story, but I did enjoy learning what happened to the Blumenthal family and how they coped with the mentally ill women in each generation.

Thanks to NetGalley and John Hunt Publishing for a review copy of the novel.

this was a great read, I really enjoyed how respectable the author did with the subject. The characters were great and I really enjoyed reading this.

Frieda Sommer had a reputation for being "tough". Divorced from her husband, she was bringing up her two daughters, Inga, the elder, and Rigmore, in pre-war Frankfurt. Inga idolized Rigmore, who always seemed to capture all the attention in a room. There was a problem with all that attention: Rigmore never enjoyed it, and never wanted to be the center of attention. In fact, she got the most pleasure listening to other people talk about themselves and their interests and concerns. Rigmore shied away from attention. From a young age, at night, in her bed, Rigmore had visions of insects crawling under her skin (and other terrible thoughts), that would not only prevent her from falling asleep, but also caused her to hurt herself (attempting to "cut" the creepy crawlers out).

Despite numerous consultations, over many years, the Sommer family had yet to receive a diagnosis / treatment to help Rigmore, and both her mom, (Frieda), and her sister (Inga), were trying, and, they were both, very well versed in the recent developments taking place at this time, (the mid 1930's) in the field of psychiatry.

As the story opens, Inga hears about a new doctor, who could possibly help Rigmore, Dr. Arnold Richter. Frieda is sceptical, but Inga begs her mother to give her plan with Arnold a chance. Arnold is also reluctant to get involved with Inga's scheme, but soon, he agrees, once he meets the lovely Rigmore.

Weaved into the story of Rigmore and the Sommer family, is the story behind the creation of the gas chambers, which, the Nazis created, to be the most efficient means of "purifying" the population.It is well known that the Nazis believed that through the practice of Eugenics, they planned to create a master race, that would be free of all diseases, including (especially) mental illness.

The story jumps ahead to the 1980's, and Inga is a grandmother, and is living in Switzerland. When she receives a message from her daughter Lisbet, that Sabine (inga's granddaughter) has checked into the hospital (having trouble "coping" ....). Inga checks onto the next flight to Boston to help Sabine. Having been through this before, Inga hopes she can be the help Sabine needs.

This story, although fiction, is based on events that actually took place in the author, Sylvia True's, family.

The way the gas chambers were devised, and also eventually put into operation, brings forward the whole issue of who was responsible for the death of the millions of Jews (as well as others) in the gas chambers, and who should be rightly (justly) condemned. So many of those who were involved, stated, and believed, that they were #justfollowingorders from "above". Silence is no defense.

Thank you #netgalley for the e-ARC of #wheremadnesslies for my honest review, it was certainly a very interesting read.

I found it difficult to get into this book, but glad I persevered. A moving a thought-provoking exploration of mental illness through the ages.

WHERE MADNESS LIES
BY SYLVIA TRUE

My rating of four stars is because of this historical fiction book based in part by fact was difficult emotionally to read and take in. In the synopsis it describes the subject of eugenics practiced in Germany in 1936 and euthanasia as a way of the Nazi's coping with it as having hope and redemption in this novel. I do not feel that the novel offered much hope or was by any means uplifting like the historical novel I just read and reviewed called, "Where Butterflies Go," written by Debra Doxer. If you are looking for a historical novel that is about the Holocaust that offers hope and redemption along with the agonies and the ecstasies look for Ms. Doxner's novel. In this novel called "Where Madness Lies," it was very well written and compelling reading but it was very depressing in my humble opinion. Nevertheless, the novel is based in factual information about the author's family during Hitlers rise to power and the story must be told so that we never forget. This novel reminded me of one of Diane Chamberlain's novel about the practice of Eugenics practiced in the United States in the South which was also filled with some hope but certainly love. Love of family by Inga's character was certainly expressed in this novel also.

This novel takes place in two different time periods about a grandmother from Frankfurt, Germany in 1935 and 1936 about a young woman named Rigmor who suffers from schizophrenia who comes from an affluent family. The other time period from which this novel alternates chapter's with is the time period of 1984 in Belmont, Massachusetts in McLean's hospital which was one of the Countries most prestigious Mental hospital's with Rigmor's granddaughter Sabine who is suffering from depression with psychotic features. Sabine has just had a baby girl named Mia who she is separated from when she volunteers to check in to Mclean's hospital. Inga who was Rigmor's elder sister is believed to be Sabine's grandmother by Sabine.

The loving tenderness with which Inga treats her sister Rigmor is poignant and touching and very emotionally moving. Inga studies treatments and mental illness and with her affluence is able to consult with Germany's very finest psychiatrist's who have studied the science of mental illness and what are some of the best treatments and diagnosis for 1936. Frieda, who is Inga's and Rigmor's mother clearly favors Rigmor over Inga. She comes across as a very domineering woman and is divorced. They are from the Jewish ethnicity and a very unconventional treatment which Rigmor undergoes behind Frieda's back orchestrated by Inga results in how Sabine's existence came to be.

I didn't like Inga at first and found her to be very domineering like her mother Frieda but as the novel proceeds to tell both Sabine's and Rigmor's stories I grew to understand that she had a great capacity to love both Rigmor and Sabine and she tried her best to help them both in their treatments.

What must be noted here is that the sterilization of any human being thought to be "feeble minded" or mentally ill was taking place not only in Germany in 1936 and 1937 but all over the world even the United States. What was being done in Germany long before the racially cleansing of the Jewish population where the death chambers being designed in Germany by gassing unsuspecting people who were mentally ill, "feeble minded" or thieves etc. in the asylums such as Sonnenstein where Rigmor was admitted to. That was not what killed Rigmor but an infection that she developed after sterilization.

To be fair to the author she has written a well written and informative account about how Eugenics and sterilization and the gas chamber's which the children and anyone to be born with characteristics of mental illness or for example Down Syndrome were starting to be experimented on and were gassed in what these innocent's thought was simply taking a shower. Except these so called showers were really chambers of carbon monoxide being pumped in. This was done before gas chambers and crematoriums were erected in the concentration camps as they were first done in the asylums. The families would receive a letter that their loved one died of heart failure or some other lying cause to avoid detection of the true cause of death. Starvation was used also to innocent inhabitants of these asylum's for mental illness like Sonnenstein or Elfging.

The obsession of race gripped Germany under Hitler's regime. Under the Nuremberg law no person's of Jewish and Aryan ethnicity were permitted to be married in 1937 and well into World War II. This novel of historical significance the author claims related to her family. While the author claim's that her grandmother the Jewish matriarch of the family fled to emigrate to Switzerland giving up all of her money and possessions and social status before the start of World War II for reason's much more secretive and dangerous than Judaism in 1935, which was mental illness on her mother's side of the family. The names have been changed and some of the details are how the author imagined them, not exactly as they might have been. But the bones of the story are true. The author's grandmother cared deeply about her family and as an aristocrat her grandmother desperately wanted her grandchildren to master the art of refinement so that they could be accepted in the highest circles of society. This is the author's grandmother's story as well as the author's.

My final thoughts on this well above average written historical fiction based on some factual history was ultimately hard to read and did not lift my spirits even though there were some extremely loving and tender moments shown between sister's and grandmother and granddaughter. For most of the book it was interesting and impossible to put down. I do think towards the last quarter I felt like the storytelling was dragging and would have been appreciated by me if it was less detailed and shortened. I did find it fascinating for most of the book but I didn't feel inspired or spiritually uplifted like I did with "Where Butterflies Go," by Debra Doxer whose book about the Holocaust left me feeling in high spirits and wanting to recommend it to family and friend's. However, that is just my humble opinion and my intellect feels like this is equally important in being a part of our history that needs to be exposed and deserves to be read so that we never forget the human suffering that took place for one reason. Also my hopes are for those who choose to read this that it educates and that those that still stigmatizes those in this world today who suffer from mental illness will change their views towards kindness and compassion for those who suffer from mental illness. I have known people who in this day and age stigmatize people with mental illness. Even nurses which I would think to be educated and realize that nobody is less of a person, in fact we are all equal and have intrinsic value in our shared humanity. It is not weakness on the individual's part and nobody would choose to suffer its affects. I wish that I could force the people who I have known to read this novel but I fear that they would be too stubborn and close minded in their deep beliefs. If by this author's choice to share this story educates just one person to not stigmatize those who have suffered from mental illness than she has succeeded in bringing kindness and compassion to archaic thinking.

Publication Date: January 21, 2021

Thank you to Net Galley, Sylvia True (You are so brave to have shared your story.), and to John Hunt Publishing Ltd for generously providing me with my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

#WhereMadnessLies #SylviaTrue #JohnHuntLtdPublishing #NetGalley

A difficult, challenging read but worthwhile. Based on the author’s own family the story follows a family in 1934 Germany and 1984 USA uncovering what happened in the past and how this can influence the future.
Dealing with eugenics, the Nazi rise to power and their desire to rid the world of people with mental illness and other defects.
Inga struggles to help her depressed sister in Nazi Germany and fifty years later tries to help her own granddaughter Sabine who has similar problems..
This book makes the reader think about family, depression, communication and hope for the future.

What’s it all about?
This is a true account set within two different time periods interchanging between 1930’s and 1984. It focuses on four main characters, Sabine, Inga, Arnold and Rigmor. who’s fate are interwoven by part circumstance, and part biological fate.
Its begnnings are amongst a backdrop of Nazi Gremany, rampant anti -Semitism ,Health Courts, developing Psychiatry and Eugenics.
What’s good about it?
Its a fantastic albeit heart wrenching story of deteriorating mental health during a period of extremism and racism against people who were deemed unworthy to live. The phrase “life unworthy of life” ( German“Lebensunwertes Leben”) was a Nazi term for the segments of the populace which according to the Nazi regime had no right to live. The characters are well described and the interpersonal narratives between them all felt as though I was living through the same brutal place. I have to say that Inga is a remarkable, courageous woman and I could have quite easily fallen in love with her myself; a true feminist in compared to its modern day interpretation. I try to imagine what decision I would have made if I were presented with the same circumstance as her; it will break your heart!
These were people of high society, who had wealth and were very cultured in the arts, but in many ways helpless and at the mercy of the changing political landscape.
The descriptions of the asylums were detailed; providing the reader with some unique insights of what life was like for some of the patients.; and provided the embryonic stages of the final solution. The title is a cleaver one, and has many meanings once the full story unfolds.
What’s not so good about it?
To be really picky, I would have liked a slightly longer ending to tie off some of the narrative.
Overall
An absolutely riveting read, Loved it, Love it !

A novel about hope and the strength of family. I found this novel hard to read at times (perhaps due to the current world circumstances) but overall I did enjoy it. The fact that it is based on the authors family also gave the story of the two women an added depth.

This was a step out of my normal genre comfort zone, so my enjoyment of this book kind of came as a shock. I really enjoyed the writing and the way the author conveyed the different emotions surrounding this tragedy. Knowing this was based on real events really grounded the story and caused me to really connect with the characters. Overall, a very compelling read.

I highly recommend reading this, despite myself not having finished this. I primarily read non-fiction and when I received an email about this book from NetGalley I thought it was non-fiction based on the description in said email. I should have paid more attention. The writing is beautiful and the story is excellent for as far as I have gotten. However, I prefer non-fiction and have so many other books I am needing to read for author and publishers that I can't give this one the full attention it deserves. I may come back to it some day and finish the story, but for now I will have to stop.

WHERE MADNESS LIES explores the effects of mental illness on two women in the same family, a grandmother and granddaughter in different times and in two countries. Rigmor, the grandmother lives in pre-war Frankfurt, while her granddaughter ( though we don’t know this right away) Sabine lives in 1980s Massachusetts. The link between them is Inga, who will stop at nothing to get help for her sister Rigmor who suffers from depression and psychotic episodes. Despite wealth, influence, and determination, Inga is unable to save her sister. She enlists Dr, Arnold Richter, who becomes doctor, friend, and one-time lover to Rigmor. In caring for her, he gets first hand knowledge of Nazi plans to put the sick and “feeble minded” to death, but his cries fall on deaf ears.
Riddled with guilt, Inga then becomes determined to help Sabine, who is institutionalized in 1984. Happily, Sabine’s treatment is more successful given the advances in mental health treatment.
Although fiction, the book is based on the author’s own experience and that of her grandmother. It’s a sobering read, but the story is always interesting and moves very quickly. It’s an important book in that it can perhaps help some readers to view mental illness differently.

This is a story based on true events. It is the tale of two sisters, one with a mental illness in rising Nazi Germany and the sister who will do anything to protect her. I haven't read any books dealing with those diagnosed with mental illness in Nazi Germany and this was the first. I couldn't put it down.


I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy free of charge. This is my honest and unbiased opinion of it.

**I received and voluntarily read an e-ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**

WWII and the Holocaust are never easy topics to write (or read) about. Most people associate the Holocaust with the killing of countless Jewish people, but a lot of people either forget about, or in some cases never even knew about the eugenics aspects of war.

Seeing as how the book is based on true historical events, I would sometimes find my mind wandering, thinking about how I would react in those times. As the book jumps back and forth in time, it's not always easy to follow, but the author does a decent job of keeping you grounded in the story.

Overall, it's a heartbreaking, but well written story.

A story based on true family history. It made me cry to think of the suffering of forcing sterilisation on people with mental health problems. It’s a powerful read that will stay with me for a long time. I totally recommend this book whilst it’s not a book to ‘enjoy’ it is a worthwhile read.

Sylvia True has based her book on her own family history

Although we are used to the convention of novels structured over multiple timelines and various points of view requiring the reader to juggle between the distant past, the recent past and the present it does not always guarantee a smooth read. And so I found with this book. For some unknown reason I really struggled in figuring out who was who and what was their specific function/place in this particular structure/time. So many times I had to stop and think about who was who and I literally (obviously not but..) staggered through the pages, muttering to myself and thinking of abandoning the whole thing.

Then, thankfully the mist lifted and I was there, following the action, shifting from scene to scene, always pondering what was going to happen in the other strand of the story. At last!

The story has two main timelines, Germany in 1934 and the USA in 1984 and fundamentally it is about two sisters, Rigmor and Inga; the daughters of influential, wealthy Jewish parents. Rigmor the younger girl suffers from depression and anxiety and her sister is determined to find a cure for her, whilst her mother a somewhat domineering person, seeks to keep her close and not discuss the issue. This is set against the background of the Nazi’s rise to power, their ‘scientific’ solution to feeblemindness, and their intelligent examination of eugenics.

In 1984 in the USA Sabine (a descendant of the girls’ mother) is similarly affected by depression and anxiety not helped by the recent birth of her daughter; she agrees to become a voluntary patient of McLean Hospital not realising that this will in fact mean she gives up her baby for the period of her hospital stay.

This is beautifully, tragically written and as soon as I grew to identify and recognise the characters my heart and mind raced: it was clear what was going to come, alarm bells resounding ‘Run, Run’ - the inevitability of it all is heartbreaking. I read with horror of the development of the ‘solution’, the description of the shower and for the poor children – babies just neglected, left to die.

A powerful, powerful book, perhaps made even more so because it is so understated in places – the place of privilege the family lived in, the position of influence and wealth – in the end, it mattered not.

Thank you to the author, publishers and NetGalley for providing an ARC via my Kindle in return for an honest review.

I was kindly gifted this book as an ARC by John Hunt Publishing and Netgalley in return for an honest review. I thank both parties for the gift.

A story about two Jewish sisters in what will soon become Nazi Germany. Rigmor is a patient at Sonnenstein which was one of Germany’s best psychiatric institutes. As the Nazi’s rose to power Rigmor’s life is at risk as the Nazi cleansing takes hold.

Inga her sister is fiercely protective of Rigmor and the story links Inga’s battles for Rigmor and her Granddaughter Sabine many years later.

I have always taken interest in the atrocities that took place during Nazi ruling. I have read a number of books and visited a number of historical sites. Everyone of them has moved me the inhumanity never ceases to creep up on me and all of these stories need to be told and retold.

This particular story gave me a whole new perspective and another aspect to the horrendous acts that took place.

By far though this was a book about love, the love of sisters, mother and daughter one human to another. Truly the most powerful force. Inga at times was harsh and seemed unfeeling, as the story progressed and moved backwards and forward through the years it was clear Inga would do whatever was necessary for the people she loved.

I was moved many times and the fact this was a based on a true story increased the affect of the storytelling.

Despair, atrocities, mental health issues and suffering ran throughout but it was all overshadowed by the love and care that one human gives another.

Fabulous read and highly recommended

"Germany, 1934. Rigmor, a young Jewish woman is a patient at Sonnenstein, a premier psychiatric institution known for their curative treatments. But with the tide of eugenics and the Nazis’ rise to power, Rigmor is swept up in a campaign to rid Germany of the mentally ill.

USA, 1984. Sabine, battling crippling panic and depression commits herself to McLean Hospital, but in doing so she has unwittingly agreed to give up her baby."

This book explores eugenics in an extremely nuanced way; through the story of two women that feels immediate and relevant even today. It also details the history of the creation of gas chambers and complexities of the mental health system in Nazi Germany that doesn't feel too far-off from today. It is a story about people trying their best under extreme circumstances, of the privilege afforded to wealthy Jews fleeing Germany, and of the ongoing stigma of mental illness.

Between mandatory sterilization in the 1930s and child custody removal in the 1980s, this novel shows how little changes in the perception and treatment of the mentally ill, even when, in both of these cases, the women were self-admitted to institutions. This is a book that I have not stopped thinking about and that will stay with me for a long time.

"The doctors you have seen, what have they said?"
"She has a combination of hysteria and depression. [...] Their words mean nothing to me. What I see is a young woman who gets herself worked up over nothing. Sometimes she cries for days, pulling at her hair, and saying that she just can't carry on anymore. She would hardly be joining the party if she was in the middle of an episode."

I found this book a little slow to get going but once I got further into it I was really drawn into the story of all the various characters and their stories. I was both intrigued and horrified by the treatment of some patients in the psychiatric institutions. Inga tries so hard to help her sister Rigmor. It conveys the high price paid for repression and the very tough consequences paid by people who find themselves in these institutions at a time of the rise of eugenics. The fact that this book was based on a true story is both thought provoking and heart breaking. A must read book.