The New York Times Book Review had a positive review of The Devil in Silver and my local public library just happened to have a copy. If you’re read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest then you know what you’re going to be in for with The Devil in Silver. A man named Pepper finds himself admitted to a mental health facility after an altercation with police. But his 72-hour stay for “observation” turns into weeks and then months. Pepper becomes a permanent resident of the mental health system with all of its bureaucracy and its callous treatment. Very frightening and Kafkaesque! GRADE: B
Sadly, the fact that so many are now not admitted to any mental health facility and in fact, often end up in prison rather than a hospital is also tragic. Or wandering the streets everywhere we go. La Jolla, because of its climate, has quite a large number of hallucinatory, bi-polar or schizophrenic denizens on their very upscale streets.
Remember how they told us these people would be treated as out-patients. Well, that doesn’t seem to work either. This is a real crisis here.
Patti, you’re right! There are plenty of street people in Buffalo who used to be in the Psych Center until the NY State Government, to save money, dismissed them with a vial of Prozac. The U.S. has a terrible mental health crisis on its hands!
And some of these places are really scary. Years ago we visited a family member who shall remain nameless who had a brief – fortunately – stay in one and I was even scared visiting him there.
Jeff, there are scenes in the mental institution described in THE DEVIL IN SILVER that are horrific! What a nightmare to be in such a place!
George, you said ” The U.S. has a terrible mental health crisis on its hands!”
Name a topic that the U.S. doesn’t have a terrible crisis on it’s hands. Government, guns and crime, health, taxes, gangs, welfare, immigration, jobs and employment, housing, the list just goes on and on. Not to mention world issues of global warming, thanks to China and such countries who pay no attention, world poverty and health, etc. It’s a mess everywhere it seems, and those in charge, like Congress, would rather spend $2.2 trillion on the Iraq war than use that on things like the debt, education, health/mental health, immigration, and all the other things I already named.
Honestly, it makes me want to curl up in a ball and weep. Instead, I bury myself in books.
Rick, you’re right about the Huge Mistake spending $2.2 trllion on Iraq did to our economy and culture. But, the Iraq War is over, the Afghanistan War is winding down, the unemployment rate is falling, and the Stock Market is booming. There are some glimmers of Hope.
Every time I hear Boehner repeat his BS “this country has a spending problem” I want to smack the crap out of him. He didn’t think there was a “spending problem” during the 10 years of the unpayed-for Bush tax cuts or two wars that were off the books or Bush’s Medicare drug giveaway (also unpayed-for). We only have a problem now because the Democrats are in office.
Spending is a “problem” when you’re the Party not in charge of the Spending, Jeff. Boehner and his cronies spent like drunken sailors (remember “ear-marks”?) when they were in power. Now that the Republicans are out of power (except in the House), they want frugality and thrift. What a crock!