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The Storm at the Door

by Stefan Merrill Block
Random. Jun. 2011. c.368p. ISBN 9781400069453. $25. F
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OrangeReviewStarKatharine and Frederick Merrill married shortly before Frederick's brief service in World War II, which ended when he was discharged for erratic behavior. After his return home, his efforts as a father and a husband failed miserably, and Katharine, despairing and feeling betrayed, was forced to commit him to Mayflower, an upscale mental hospital, to keep him out of jail. Moving back and forth in time, Block (The Story of Forgetting) takes as his framework his grandparents' volatile marriage, splitting his narrative between Katharine's life as a struggling single mother in the 1960s and Frederick's life in a hospital of brilliant, creative, mentally ill men at the mercy of a dangerous director whose failed attempt to silence Frederick leads to horrific tragedy.
VERDICT Taking a true story and building an imagined world of love, mental illness, and the quiet evil of a weak man with power, Block demands a reader's full attention so as not to miss a single, searing moment.
Reviewed by Beth E. Andersen, Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI , Jun 01, 2011
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