MORAL TREATMENT
by Stephanie Carpenter
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Pub Date Feb 25 2025 | Archive Date Jan 29 2025
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Description
Inaugural winner of the Summit Series Prize from Central Michigan University Press, MORAL TREATMENT is literary historical fiction at its finest: elegantly written, moving, relevant, and unforgettable.
In 1889, seventeen-year-old Amy Underwood is committed to a psychiatric hospital in northern Michigan. Feeling abandoned by her loved ones, she finds solace in her friendship with a spirited fellow patient, Letitia. Yet as Amy becomes more comfortable at the hospital, she faces a troubling reality: not everyone will leave this place.
The hospital’s aging superintendent, the doctor, believes in the principles of the moral treatment: that an orderly environment, healthy diet, exercise, and uplifting activities will restore mental health. But as the hospital’s population swells, the doctor’s control slips—and those closest to him clamor for change. In this dual coming-of-age story, as Amy grows in self-awareness, the doctor is forced to reexamine his long-standing professional and personal practices.
A Note From the Publisher
Advance Praise
INAUGURAL WINNER of the SUMMIT SERIES PRIZE from CENTRAL MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY PRESS
"[a] carefully detailed, subtly observed novel . . . . affecting . . ."—KIRKUS REVIEWS
". . . evocative . . . . Carpenter maintains a hazy boundary between what’s actually occurred and what the characters have only imagined, inviting readers to draw their own conclusions. Along the way, Carpenter holds the reader’s attention with thorough descriptions of the asylum and the characters’ period-specific sensibilities."—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“By showing us the same hospital through the eyes of its superintendent and a young patient, this novel powerfully demonstrates the vast distance between theory and reality: yet I also felt moved by these two characters’ similar searching for true understanding of the world. A marvelous achievement.”
—CLARE BEAMS, author of The Garden and The Illness Lesson
“…[a story] as relevant today as in the 19th century…clear-eyed yet compassionate.”
—ERIC TORGERSEN, contest judge and author of In Which We See Our Selves: American Ghazals
“…brilliant….so fully realized that the reader forgets both ‘historical’ and ‘fiction’ while dwelling in these pages….”
—LAURA KASISCHKE, author of Eden Springs and Mind of Winter
"...compelling....With luminous complexity, the affecting novel Moral Treatment recounts an era of progressive advancements and clinical abominations in American mental health care."
—FOREWORD REVIEWS
Marketing Plan
Trigger warning: this novel is set in a psychiatric hospital and addresses mental health problems and treatments. Also, there are several depictions of attempted sexual assault, and references to sexual violence.
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9798991064606 |
| PRICE | $19.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 361 |
