Wautoma Public Library

The illness lesson, a novel, Clare Beams

eng

no index present

fiction

The illness lesson

1192371834

Clare Beams

a novel

1871, Ashwell, Massachusetts. At the farm of Samuel Hood and his daughter, Caroline, a mysterious flock of red birds descends. Samuel takes the birds' appearance as an omen that the time is ripe for his newest venture. He will start a school for young women, guiding their intellectual development as he has so carefully guided his daughter's. It's not long before the students begin to manifest bizarre symptoms: rashes, fits, headaches, verbal tics, night wanderings. The school turns to the ministering of a physician, but as the girls' conditions worsen long-buried secrets emerge, and Caroline must confront the all-male, all-knowing authorities around her, the ones who insist the voices of the sufferers are unreliable