Girl, Interrupted

Susanna Kaysen was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1948 and published Girl, Interrupted in 1993. Kaysen shares that she felt exhausted, depressed, and overwhelmed during her adolescence, during which time she attempted suicide. She documents her 18-month stay at McLean Hospital, in which she examines her own state of mind as well as the microculture of the McLean Hospital residents in the broader setting of American society in the 1960s. Her work serves as both a personal testimonial and an exploration of approaches to mental health and recovery in the 1960s, with an emphasis on the female experience.

Kaysen is credited with making a valuable contribution to destigmatizing struggles with depression and other disorders by sharing her experience, and in doing so helping to change the culture around mental health in the US. Her perspective and prose provide a personal and lyrical way to encounter institutionalization from Kaysen’s lived experience.

Lisa is a fellow patient at McLean, who has been diagnosed as a sociopath by McLean staff. Lisa became one of Kaysen’s closest friends at the hospital, and she is mentioned frequently throughout the book. Kaysen views Lisa as a funny, irreverent, and irrepressible person who thoroughly resented being hospitalized and had a knack for escaping McLean for days at a time.