The Big Girls - Hardcover

Moore, Susanna

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1400041902 ISBN 13: 9781400041909

Publisher: Knopf, 2007

Synopsis

At the heart of this electrifying novel is a crime of unfathomable horror and its effect on several profoundly different lives, each altered by a surprising connection to the others.

We hear four brilliantly realized voices: Helen, an inmate at Sloatsburg women’s prison serving a life sentence for the murder of her children; trapped within the maze of her own tortured mind, she is the subject of damning national attention. Dr. Louise Forrest, the recently divorced mother of an eight-year-old boy—the new chief of psychiatry at Sloatsburg. Angie, an ambitious Hollywood starlet, intent on nothing but fame. And Ike Bradshaw, a sardonic corrections officer, formerly a New York City narcotics detective.

As the alternating narratives unfold, we begin to wonder why Dr. Forrest has chosen Sloatsburg over the Park Avenue practice for which she was trained. And the origin of Helen’s psychosis is revealed—both its shocking depths and its disturbingly convincing rationale—as well as why she is desperate to make herself known to the young actress Angie.

The Big Girls is a powerful and audacious novel about the anarchy of families, the sometimes destructive power of the maternal instinct, the vitality and evil of communities, and the cult of celebrity—written in spare, evocative prose and with a bold understanding of the darkest, most hidden aspects of human nature.

About this title

About the Author

Susanna Moore is the author of the novels One Last Look, In the Cut, Sleeping Beauties, The Whiteness of Bones, and My Old Sweetheart, and a book of nonfiction, I Myself Have Seen It. She lives in New York City.

Reviews

Susanna Moore, author of In the Cut (which was made into a film starring Meg Ryan), does not shy away from disturbing subject matter. In The Big Girls, she uses horrifying crimes to explore the meaning of love, especially the mythological pure love of motherhood. Critics agreed that her central characters, Helen and Louise, are powerfully drawn and compelling, as is her terrifying portrait of prison-and institutional-life. While most praised the novel, a few found the subplots contrived and the multiple viewpoints distracting. Readers who aren't put off by the many voices and the disturbing subject matter will not soon forget these two women and their stories.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Starred Review. In spare yet hypnotic prose, Moore (One Last Look) examines the bond between a young psychiatrist and a mentally ill patient in her devastating sixth novel, set at an upstate New York federal women's prison. Sloatsburg Correctional Institution, a former sanitarium on the west bank of the Hudson, is dangerous, understaffed, underfinanced and overwhelmingly grim. The place epitomizes what's wrong with our nation's prison system and stands as a warning about our growing mental health crisis. Moore deftly shifts perspective among her principal characters—Dr. Louise Forrest, Sloatsburg's psychiatry chief; Helen Nash, a suicidal inmate who's been convicted of killing her children; Capt. Henry "Ike" Bradshaw, a corrections officer who's in love with Louise; and Angie Mills, a Hollywood actress (and Louise's ex-husband's girlfriend), whom Helen believes is her long-lost sister—as the action hurtles to an oddly satisfying resolution. Reading this heartbreaker is like watching a train wreck while dialing for help on your cellphone. You can't turn away. 75,000 printing; author tour. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Set in a women’s prison on the Hudson River, Moore’s sixth novel chronicles the aftermath of a highly publicized murder and its impact on four intertwined lives. The story is told in the alternating voices of Helen, who has long suffered terrifying schizophrenic hallucinations and is serving a life sentence for killing her two small children; Helen’s psychiatrist, a single mother who came to work at the prison out of guilt over a patient’s suicide; a corrections officer who becomes involved with the psychiatrist; and an ambitious Hollywood star whom Helen believes to be her sister. Moore gradually probes Helen’s psychosis to its horrifying origins, while also delivering a nuanced and devastating account of the fights, rapes, and alliances built from necessity that constitute prison life.
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*Starred Review* The author ofIn the Cut (1995) returns to form with this compelling jailhouse drama. As the narrative alternates between four points of view, all equally commanding, Moore blurs the lines between criminals and their jailers, emphasizing their common humanity. Helen, an inmate at Sloatsburg women's prison who was the victim of horrific childhood abuse and is suffering from schizophrenia, has committed the most unspeakable of crimes: she killed her two children. Her psychiatrist, Louise Forrest, who chooses to work in a prison rather than the more lucrative practice she might have enjoyed, is drawn to the shy prisoner, slipping Helen small presents against the rules, for reasons she herself does not entirely understand. Corrections officer Ike Bradshaw walks a fine line, sometimes ministering as a priest would, other times meting out punishment. And, finally, there is Vangie, a Hollywood actress with hidden emotional depths who strikes up a correspondence with Helen. Moore never shies away from the dark crimes at the center of the narrative, but she brings electrifying prose and a richly compassionate viewpoint to her meditation on both the dark and the generous impulses at work in all of us. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Sloatsburg Correctional Institution, a walled complex of seven large stone buildings, sits on the west bank of the Hudson River. An hour north of Manhattan by train, it was built in the late nineteenth century as a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients. Buildings A, B, and C hold five hundred prisoners of the federal government, all of them women. The remaining buildings are used for clinics, schoolrooms, the chapel, and administration as well as for the laundry, kitchens, library, and machine shop. There is a large plot of land behind Building A where the prisoners grow beans. A high brick wall with two wooden watchtowers occupied by men with rifles surrounds the prison on three sides. The river runs parallel to Building C on the east. There are no guardhouses along the river, which causes me to wonder. Do they think that black women can't swim?

My first day at Sloatsburg—six months ago this Monday—I made a cautious tour of the place, looking over my shoulder as if fearful of my own apprehension. No one seemed to notice, or to care, which I decided was a good sign. I am still making a cautious tour of the place.

I enter each weekday morning through elaborate iron gates, left from the days when Sloatsburg's population was consumptive Irish housemaids and dairy farmers, passing slowly through three security checkpoints with cameras, metal detectors, scanning machines, and electronic hand-checks to a large front hall with a white marble floor. The odor, even in the hall, is female.

My office is on the second floor of Building C. The rooms, on either side of a narrow hall, were once used by patients, but now they are occupied by the medical staff and social workers. The doors to the offices, each with a thick glass panel, are often left ajar, and it is possible to overhear the doctors and their patients. Cameras are suspended from the hall ceiling at intervals of thirty feet, although not inside the small bathroom. The bathroom is reserved for staff. The key is one of several we are meant to keep with us at all times, along with keys to the pharmacy, clinic, file room, and chapel, which is kept locked except when it is used as a movie theater.

There are no windows in the offices. There is a wooden desk with drawers. Three metal chairs—the one with arms is for the doctor. I keep my keys in the desk, as well as a Walkman and CDs for the train ride back and forth to the city, a tape measure in a green leather case that once belonged to my mother, a penknife, tea bags, my personal drugs, an alarm clock, a photograph of my son, pens and pencils, a pencil sharpener, and some licorice. Also a flask of vodka and a map of the prison. An electric kettle, teapot, and two Japanese saké cups sit atop a file cabinet. On my desk is a cypripedium in a clay pot. Some of these things are against prison regulations. With a little reflection, I see that my small attempts to make my office more comfortable, more suitable to my tastes, are a bit spinsterish.

Each morning, after checking the pharmacy's compliance sheet (expiration dates of prescriptions), I make a list of the psychiatrists' daily appointments for the officer on duty, who then arranges for the escorts to bring each patient at the appointed time. The most important events of the day are the two counts—one at ten o'clock in the morning and another at four in the afternoon. Because of the counts, there is only time to see two or three patients a day. In the past, patients were treated by a different psychiatrist every other week for two or three minutes. The previous chief of staff was given large amounts of money by the government to conduct a study of the animal tranquilizer ketamine with inmates used as subjects. Ketamine induces, among other things, hallucinations, light trails, and whispering voices. I've canceled the program. If a patient is too psychotic even for us, she is taken under guard to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.

I am beginning to understand certain things. Appearances to the contrary, I was a nervous wreck when I arrived last fall. Louise, I would say to myself each morning, you can do this. But the truth is I didn't have a clue. It is a miracle that I've lasted this long. I still feel strained and peculiar—the foul odors, the slow black river, the bells, the yellow light, all swirling around me, make me dizzy. It is only a matter of time.

...

They brought me here right after my sentencing. I was pretty confused. I didn't understand I was going to be locked up for the rest of my life. I thought all along I was going to be put to death. I wanted to be put to death!

The processing took all night. I was with four other women, who I never saw again. We had to fill out a lot of forms. Then they made us take off our clothes, and they searched us like we heard they would, wearing gloves. Some of the officers wore three pairs. They kept yelling, Come on! Come on! Hurry it up, ladies, let's get this show on the road! Which made me even more nervous than I was. One of the other women was crying, and she kept saying, I am innocent, I am innocent, until a guard finally said, Oh, I guess that's why they got you all wrapped up in chains, sweetheart.

I was sweating a lot, and when I was fingerprinted, my thumb came out all blurry. When I apologized, the woman guard taking my prints said in a nice way, It's okay, hon, it's just like the first pancake. The transport officer who had drove the bus was sitting there eating Chinese food and he said, I know what you mean about that pancake. Behind him was a sign, YOU WON'T BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS.

They asked us to wiggle our toes, pull our ears, and shake our hair, which was hard for the lady with dreads. They told us to puff out our face cheeks and our lips and to hold them that way. They sprayed us for lice and other things. Because it was so late, they decided not to give us a Pap smear and the liver tests. I kept wondering why they were going to so much trouble for people who were on their way to the electric chair, but I didn't say a word.

They put me in a big holding cell with a lot of other prisoners. It was so packed you couldn't lie down, not even on the floor. It was early in the summer, but it was already hot. There was no air-conditioning, and the hum of the generator made me feel calm, like I was inside a big machine. Some people had taken off their tops, wearing them on their head or around their waist. One lady used her bra as a headband. You were supposed to use the intercom to ask for what you needed, like a drink of water or toilet paper, but it didn't work. A lot of the women had their period and there was blood all over them. The toilet was overflowing, stuffed with all kinds of things, not just you-know-what.

They fed us at six-thirty in the morning. Lunch was at eleven, and dinner at four. After about two days—I think it was two days, I had trouble keeping track of time—I was put in my own cell. I was lucky to get moved so quick because some people can stay for weeks until cells are available. I found out later I wasn't even supposed to be with other women, but someone messed up. I was moved in case I was in danger. I felt bad for the ones who got left behind, but I figured they couldn't execute all of us at once. They could only do a few at a time, right? That's what I thought.

...

There are three psychiatrists, in addition to myself, on staff. Dr. Fischl has a full red beard and a medical degree from Grenada. Dr. Henska had her license suspended for six months in 2001 for selling human blood. Dr. de la Vega, if he is in fact a doctor, was engaged by my predecessor, who has since been promoted to Guantánamo Bay, where he advises the government on more efficient ways to increase the psychological and physical duress of prisoners. Dr. de la Vega was found through an agency called Shrinks Only. Each of the doctors, myself included, has eighty patients—at least on paper. We are assisted (impeded) by three medical social workers. Ms. Morton, a case manager, was disciplined in her previous place of employment for the suicide of a twelve-year-old boy in her care. Eight locum tenentes work part-time, usually at night or on the weekend. They tend to be fourth-year psychiatric residents trying to make some money—they can earn six hundred dollars for an eight-hour shift. They have trouble staying awake.

Yesterday, I overheard Dr. Fischl and Dr. de la Vega, who wears black three-piece suits, talking about me—like my former husband, they cannot conceive why I would work in a prison. It's a good question—even I sometimes wonder why I am here. The Girl Scouts, summers with the Haida in Canada, mild lesbian attractions, and a loss of virginity at a rather late age to the regional director of Amnesty International do not in themselves account for it. Dr. Henska and Dr. de la Vega certainly wouldn't work in a prison unless compelled by reasons I hope never to know. No one wants to work as a prison doctor, except the locums. The rest of us are badly paid, although slightly better than the inmates in the psychiatric unit who earn eighteen cents an hour to keep an eye on their fellow inmates. In some institutions, they ask the more melancholy prisoners to sign a pledge that they will not kill themselves. Dr. Henska suggested in a recent staff meeting that we avail ourselves of this precaution. There is not an abundance of wit in these meetings—that would be a lot to ask—but I did think it was funny. Only when she mentioned it a second time did I realize she meant it. I looked my most puzzled, wrinkling my brow to let her know I'd changed my mind—I no longer thought it very funny. Needless to say, she dislikes me.

One hundred African American, Hispanic, and Caucasian men and women are employed by the Bureau of Prisons as corrections officers at Sloatsburg. They aren't particularly friendly to the medical staff, moving as we do between the imprisoned and their captors, and they understandably mistrust us. As do the inmates. Although both the gua...

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1400041902
• ISBN 13: 9781400041909
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240