Lee Smith's latest novel is a story of unexpected comradery and self-discovery in a mental hospital. Evalina Toussaint, our protagonist, grew up in New Orleans with her beautiful, vibrant mother whom Evalina adores. They are happy together, and life just seems to get better when her mother becomes pregnant. The father moves them all to a nice house in the suburbs, but shortly after Evalina's baby brother is born he sickens and dies. Evalina's mother, once so full of hope and life, soon follows.
The father, wracked with guilt, brings Evalina home to live with his other family - including a wife and other children. That works about as well as one would expect, and overcome by grief and her new hostile environment, Evalina finds herself shipped off to Highland Hospital in Asheland, North Carolina. It is one of the most defining moments of her entire life, and possibly one of the best things to ever happen to her.
The year is 1936. As she quickly recovers from her depression at Highland, Evalina soon makes friends with both fellow patients and with staff memebers. Notable among these are Mrs. Carroll, who encourages Evalina's natural talent for the piano, and the mercurial but fascinating Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of the famous writer. Both of these women take Evalina under their wings, in their own separate ways, to teach her lessons about life, loss, and love.
Thanks to her talent for piano and much encouragement from all of her fellows, Evalina eventually leaves Hillcrest to attend music school. She eventually ventures abroad to perform, but her career stutters and collapses after a series of personal tragedies. Evalina finds herself once more a patient at Hillcrest, perhaps the only place where she has ever really felt at home. She reconnects with Zelda and eventually finds herself more staff member than patient as she slowly recovers from her loss. Hillcrest remains her home until the fateful night when it burned down, taking many patients along with it.
Smith paints a beautiful protagonist who acknowledges the flaws in her own point of view as a narrator, but still strives to show ups, the reader, the beauty she found in a life that was not what society said she "should" want or be a part of. I also strongly identified with Smith's portrayal of the people who had been committed to Hillcrest, not as madly frothing lunatics but as normal, feeling people with demons and challenges, who needed help and encouragement to overcome their problems and who worked hard to do so. Evalina and her fellow patients have a lot of fun in each other's company and get into more than a little mischief on occasion.
One of my favorite parts is when Evalina begins to acknowledge Zelda's shortcomings and troubles underneath her manic vibrancy and energy, recognizing the person as well as the presence. Another of my favorite moments was the Christmas scene, when Evalina finds herself in kind of a trance with the piano, as though continuing to play it will allow her to clearly see the whispers on the edge of her consciousness of what happened to her when she left Highland.
The sentiments of pain, healing, and accepting that what the societal ideal of "healthy" and "happy" are isn't necessarily what's best for a given person are very sweet and give the reader a subtle message of self-acceptance and serenity in spite of - maybe because of - the human condition.
If you liked The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow or other stories of quiet, graceful struggle and eventual self-discovery, set against a backdrop of beautifully described scenery and memorable characters, pick up a copy of Guests on Earth by Lee Smith. It's available starting October 15th at your local independently-owned bookstore.
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