THE CLOSED DOOR

The story of a Scotch lassie who becomes imprisoned in a mental home and cannot escape, an arresting story which for all its many incredibly barbarous scenes and events holds one for the reading. Rosie, who starts to work at 15 as a housemaid, eventually goes to her grandfather who bullies and abuses her so that she runs away. She suffers a five day lapse of amnesia (after which time the police send her to an asylum); during the period she has become pregnant, so on recovery of her memory, she conceals her identity, and is moved to the dreaded asylum near her home. The tortures there make this seen incredible today (the time is not indicated), and in the process she loses her child, and eventually, with the help of a nurse, escapes. Soon after she gets a position in a sympathetic family, and there she stays. The Scotch background and dialect may somewhat limit popular interest, but as a story it reads rapidly and well, with some of the hold of The Outward Room.