Half a million copies sold! The breakout novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Orphan Collector, What She Left Behind weaves together riveting stories of past and present, exploring the strength of women in two different times as they face adversity in two very different ways. Go inside the horrifying walls of a 1920s New York asylum as a wrongly imprisoned woman fights for … York asylum as a wrongly imprisoned woman fights for what is most important to her—and meet the young woman confronting the pain and mystery of her own family’s mental illness two generations later.
Ten years ago, Izzy Stone’s mother fatally shot her father while he slept. Devastated by her mother’s apparent insanity, Izzy, now seventeen, refuses to visit her in prison. But her new foster parents, employees at the local museum, have enlisted Izzy’s help in cataloging items at a long-shuttered state asylum. There, amid piles of abandoned belongings, Izzy discovers a stack of unopened letters, a decades-old journal, and a window into her own past.
Young flapper and suffragette Clara Cartwright is caught between her overbearing parents and her desire to be a modern woman. Furious when she rejects an arranged marriage, instead finding love with an Italian Immigrant, Clara’s father sends her to a genteel home for nervous invalids. But when his fortune is lost in the stock market crash of 1929, he can no longer afford her care—and Clara is committed to the public asylum.
Even as Izzy deals with the challenges of yet another new beginning, Clara’s story keeps drawing her into the past. If Clara was never really mentally ill, could something else explain her own mother’s violent act? Piecing together Clara’s fate compels Izzy to re-examine her own choices—with shocking and unexpected results.
“Screams with authenticity, depth, and understanding.”
—The New York Journal of Books
“A real page turner…will appeal to all readers of fiction.”
—The Historical Novels Review
“Amazing…A great read!”
—The San Francisco Book Review
“Will both haunt and inspire you… a moving, and at times chilling story that totally endears you to her characters.”
—SpaWeek
“A great coming-of-age story.”
—School Library Journal
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So loved this book. So sad to think these conditions and treatments actually existed. Wonderful characters and so resilient. Hard to put this one down.
The best book maybe for me which described about harsh reality of the world .
This is a great book. Interesting topic. I like her style of writing.
Well written but a difficult subject to read about because you know people were really treated that way.
This novel contains two stories, one slightly more compelling to me than the other.
The more suspenseful story is Clara’s, a 20 something woman in the 1930s, who defies her wealthy and powerful father and pays the price throughout her lifetime. Her saga is intriguing from page one and only gets more so.
The other narrative concerns a 17 year old girl, living in the first decent foster home she’s had, and starting a new high school as a senior. But Izzy has more to deal with than simple bullying from the “mean girls.” She also has dark family and personal secrets that she doesn’t fully understand. Among them the fact that her real mother is in prison for killing her father. Izzy’s story gets more complex and more interesting as the book progresses.
How these two stories weave together, with all secrets eventually revealed, touches on some powerful and dark issues along the way. Like the power of mother love, the powerlessness of some women in the mid-twentieth century, and the horrendous medical treatment available in state mental institutions. Not a read for the fainthearted, but very satisfying at the end.
An exceptionally written dual timeline novel!
Heartbreaking and suspenseful, this intriguing story spans decades. The vivid details and strong characters pulled me in from page one. And the multi-layered plot veined and twisted keeping me completely engrossed to the end.
The strength and love that drives these women to overcome adversity will have you cheering them on. The events that happen will outrage you. It is not a story for the squeamish.
this is one of my all time favorite books. its unforgettable
This book was incredibly hard to read…. In a good way, if that’s possible! I felt they plight and internal conflict of these characters so deeply that the injustices dealt to both heroines (and a few secondary) left me livid! I felt as though I’d lived through their ordeals, then made me glad I had not. Riveting, heart breaking, beautifully written.
What She Left Behind is the first book I’ve read by this author and I can’t wait to read more of her books! Izzy Stone, a teenager, lives with a foster family after her mother fatally shot her father. When Izzy starts to help her foster parents catalog belongings of people who were once in the now shuttered asylum, she becomes intrigued with one of the suitcases which held letters and a journal from a woman named Clara. As she reads the journal and follows Clara’s life she begins to wonder about her own mothers sanity. This is a very well written book with strong characters and one I didn’t want to put down! I highly recommend it!
What She Left behind was a wonderful read! I could not put it down! Do yourself a favor and read this one!!
What She Left Behind is a haunting tale with a dual timeline. Clara is wrongfully committed to an insane asylum in the 1930s. Izzy is a modern-day foster teen whose mother is incarcerated for murdering her husband, Izzy’s father. Izzy’s mother is assumed to be mentally ill. When Izzy’s foster parents get her involved in work on a project going through the suitcases recently discovered at the abandoned Willard Insane Asylum, Izzy comes across Clara’s journal. As the story unfolds, the worlds of Izzy and Clara blend in unexpected ways.
Wiseman’s writing is wonderful. The unfairness of Clara’s commital to the asylum is palpable as is the horror of such places at that time in history. If one wasn’t already insane, they probably would be before long just from being there. In that sense, it was difficult to read knowing that the “treatments” described in the novel were actually performed on people. Often, too, people were committed who simply shouldn’t have been as they were not insane but just in some way had stepped outside of what was expected of them by society or their families, as was the case with Clara.
After the gut-wrenching despair of Clara’s life in the asylum, the story’s ending is one that offers hope and relief for the reader. A very good story!
This book was a real eye-opener to me on institutionalized people years ago. Sad, and unfortunately, too true.
It almost seemed far fetched until I verified the research. The book takes a terrible history and finds a better ending. Remarkable.
This book was amazing. I was taken away by the story and how it was written. This is a great read.
Loved this book, so very sad.
Hard to put down this book! Marvelous character development, so well written you can picture it in your mind numerous times during the day, and sadly historically correct. One of the best books I have read lately and highly recommend!
The idea that women were once sent to an asylum so easily was infuriating and disturbing. In this story, the young woman’s father has her committed because he doesn’t approve of the man she loves. If that’s not insane enough, once there, it is immediately clear that the staff is not there to help. In fact, patients are subjected to brutal treatments, many deadly. Regardless of that dark reality and the heartbreaking sadness, the story drew me in and I wanted to know more about the fate of the woman. This is a book with alternating perspectives. It begins in present day with the discovery of a journal and dates back decades when the horrible events in the asylum were transpiring. Both stories are profound. Although it was somewhat predictable, the weaving of the two stories was well done and had a satisfying ending.
This book has some tough subject matter, but was such a great read. The author did a great job blending the two storylines- past and present- and tying them together in the resolution. Recommended!
One of the reasons I enjoy reading historical fiction is learning about little known facets of history – much of it more interesting and just as important as what is learned in school. I’d heard stories and rumors about insane asylums / mental hospitals of old. But never did I realize how often they were used to get rid of people that either dared to be different or stand up for themselves against oppressive family under the pretext of getting them “help”.
In this story we learn about a young woman in the late 1920s and early 30s who dared to fall in love with someone her parents did not approve of. She was sent away to “get help” after she stood up to her father. The reader learns about her through the eyes of a young girl in modern times helping her foster parents catalogue items from the closed Willard Asylum for a museum exhibit. Izzy finds Clara’s trunk in which was her journal leading up to her admittance to Willard. The journey that ensues in alternating chapters between Clara’s story and Izzy’s own difficult story is one of discovery, tragedy, and strength of the human spirit.
This book evoked so many emotions for me – outrage and despair at the way Clara and others were treated, sadness and intrigue at finding out what happened to Clara, anger at the way the “mean girls” treated Izzy, hope for Izzy’s future, and tears of relief and joy finally.
This is a book I highly recommend – well-written and researched with memorable characters and a sense of restored hope in human nature.
Loved it. It makes you mad and sad.