Jenny Froehle

Opening Scenes: Prologue Vincennes, Indiana April 1888 The day she almost killed Henry, Ann faced the morning drenched in sweat. The bedsheets clung, and her head ached. Night had been a restless battle for sleep that never came. Rolling sideways, she studied the sunlight streaming through the window. Could it penetrate the baffling fog around her? Probably not. Shadows wrapped her like skin lately, muffling everything. She missed clear outlines. Sharp edges. Herself. At Bridget’s light knock, Ann tensed. She pulled herself upright against the headboard, trying to look like a woman ready for the day as the girl entered with a tray. “I thought toasted bread and egg would taste good this morning, ma’am, and there’s strawberry jam and honey. I love honey, but I don’t know if you prefer…” Bridget’s voice trailed off as she met Ann’s eyes, and Ann thought the girl flinched. Then she recovered, placing the tray on Ann’s lap and averting her gaze as she prattled on. “I know you’re tired. But when you’ve finished eating, Mr. Agnew said you should—he said I was to make sure you come downstairs today. I’ve given Henry and Grace breakfast and sent them to the garden to play, but the baby will need—" “Yes.” Why did every conversation require so much effort, so many words? Didn’t I just feed the baby? Ann passed a hand across her forehead, pushing back limp strands of hair, and tried hard to think like a mother. Soft taps on the door from Bridget waking her to nurse all bled together. Was it twice last night or not at all? She couldn’t remember. Why didn’t she know? The girl waited, studying her with an uneasy expression. “Go ahead downstairs.” Ann swept her hand toward the door, trying to infuse the words with authority. “I know you have chores. Bring the baby to me later.” She didn’t say when. The child would demand attention when it hungered for her. She had no control over its needs. His needs, she reminded herself. The baby was a person. Like her. Or perhaps--if he was lucky--not like her at all. Bridget pulled the door closed as she left, and Ann examined the toast. Eating it would be like chewing dust. Tastes, smells, colors, the simple daily motions of her life…she couldn’t summon them. She hadn’t felt anything but exhaustion for weeks. She glanced uneasily at the ceiling, where shadows gathered in the corners, swallowing the light like it was food. Soon they would finish eating the light. Then they would come for her. Tears blurred her eyes. The world was dimming, and she was powerless to stop it. Suddenly, she was five again, caught in the hallway as her father left her mother’s bedroom with a face set in stone and a biting command: “Stay away from this room, Annie. Do you hear? She doesn’t want to see anyone right now. Go play.” She had strained for a glimpse as he shut the door, but with the drapes drawn, all she could make out were dim shapes. How could her mother stand to lie in that gloom all day? Even a child knows living things need light and air. And mothers. She reached for the toast. Closing her teeth around a tiny corner, she tugged, letting it dissolve into a sticky paste on her tongue before swallowing. Another bite. Chew. Swallow. She fixed her eyes on the window instead of the shadows. She wouldn’t let them have her so easily. Her children were waiting. Chapter 1 One Year Earlier June 1887 Carriages clattered past the house on Sycamore Street, but in the peace of the back garden, Ann listened to Grace and Henry’s piping voices rise and fall over the sounds of birds and relaxed on the bench under the gnarled maple. Afternoon light pierced the leaves and dappled the lawn. She savored the scents of warm grass and damp earth, opening herself to the awe that often flooded her as she watched her children. They had made her a pilgrim to a holy place she had not known existed, somehow adding to her even as they took. She marveled at their power as her hand drifted to her stomach, settled there, resting. Henry was calling for Grace to help find his ball, which had disappeared into the bushes hugging the fence. Grace, distracted as always, squatted in that awkward crouch toddlers rested in with ease, face rapt as she examined a purple coneflower. Ann watched a bee float nearer in lazy spirals, restraining the urge to pull Grace to safety. Not interrupting joy was one of her few rules for mothering, one of the only things she felt sure of. Grace reached toward the flower, and before Ann could call out a warning, the bumblebee collided with her daughter’s tiny wrist. At Grace’s shocked cry, Ann moved without thinking, sinking to her knees in the grass to fold Grace into her arms. “Mamaaa!” Grace wailed, tears welling as pain replaced surprise. “Owww, Mama. Ow…hurt!” She waved her arm as Ann tried to examine the angry red lump. What did a good mother do for a bee sting? She felt the quick, familiar ache of loss for all the things she couldn’t ask, didn’t know. Never mind. She’d figure it out. “Shhh, Gracie. It’s all right, love.” She kissed the wispy brown hair, inhaling the sweet smell that always calmed her, and felt the child melt into her, sniffling and whimpering. “Let’s go make it better.” She hoisted Grace to her hip. “Henry, I’ll be right back,” she called. “I’m going to take care of your sister’s arm.” Henry’s reply was muffled as he rooted around under the forsythia. In the kitchen, she bathed Grace’s wrist in a basin of water cooled with chips from the ice box block. The red bump looked smaller already, and the promise of cake with supper had Grace smiling. Still, Ann heard the dark voice of uncertainty in her head. Should I have let her play in the flowers? She had no idea. All her life, she had excelled at banishing doubt; now it lived inside her like a guest that wouldn’t leave. Before Henry’s birth, she’d been different, flooded with confidence and boundless energy. She stitched piles of embroidered blankets and tiny nightgowns, spent hours canning and preserving, stocked the pantry and root cellar. The perfect wife and housekeeper, she made sure glass sparkled and furniture gleamed. Flowers from her garden brightened every room. When Edward got home from work each evening, she presented his supper and took her place at the table, shining with the certainty that she was extraordinary, a vessel carrying another life about to begin. In the last months of pregnancy, she sometimes lay awake at night, feeling the flutters and kicks inside her crescendo like rising music. Then Henry arrived, and her brightness tarnished. Motherhood delivered so many kinds of hurt: the ache between her legs that lasted weeks; heavy-headed fatigue from ragged nights of sleeping in bits and pieces; cries that pierced the house and made her feel inept; the endless tedium of diapering and laundering piles of reeking cloth soaked in human fluids. Becoming a mother swept her off-balance completely; she awoke each day to another battle to survive the raging rapids of its brutal requirements. Every light thing in her turned to stone. Edward brimmed with pride when he held their son, but he escaped to the railroad office each day. He had no idea of the lonely hours, the drudgery, the guilty fragments of uneasy rest she stole while the baby slept. He barely noticed the polished furniture, clean carpets, warm food presented to him on plates that would be washed and filled and washed again. Work without end. Ann fractured alone on the rocky shores of motherhood, and it took months to put herself back together. Just as she began to feel whole, Grace was born, and again she fought through waves of fatigue, hiding her growing despair that perhaps she was not meant to be a mother at all. The garden saved her. In the early days, she slipped outside while the babies slept, replenishing herself in brief snatched moments soaking up quiet and sunshine on the bench under the maple tree,. She began to love tending flowers and vegetables, silent things with few demands. In time, as the children grew, she worked in the garden or watched them as they played. She remembered all she had wanted as a child and gave it to them. She listened, shared their laughter, held them close, paid attention. Soon every simple moment with them shone bright, eclipsing the rest of her life. She kept house the best she could, swept dirt under carpets, and rushed to prepare supper in a panic when she realized how late the afternoon had gotten. She began to dread Edward’s arrival each evening. Last night had been typical. He wrapped the children in a hug as they ran to him and offered her a pleasant smile as he removed his coat. With Grace on his lap in the parlor, he listened to Henry narrate a battle with his toy soldiers while Ann set the table. During supper, she had begun to relax, letting her mind wander. He wiped bread crumbs from his sandy moustache and recounted a continued problem with train delays on one of the routes without pausing for her reaction. Sometimes his obliviousness to her was soothing. Then came his usual query. “And what have you done today?” She knew she should summon a light response, laugh that her tasks would sound dull to him, but instead her heart skipped beats as she searched for answers that would prove she was capable, the right wife, the right kind of mother. “I—I took up this rug and cleaned it.” She gestured to the floor. “And did all the ironing.” “And…?” He would wait with a polite smile. Expecting more. An inspector of accomplishments. Reminding her of things she had deemed unimportant until his eyes landed on them. “I filled the lamps in the parlor and polished them.” “That cannot have taken much time.” Did his smile falter? She wasn’t sure. He folded his napkin neatly as he persisted. “How did you pass the afternoon then?” “We…we spent most of it in the garden.” He raised a brow, questioning still, as she tried to explain. If only she could describe the moments for him, so he would see how precious they were. “Grace is trying to catch a butterfly.” Her face lit up as she thought of the little hands chasing a swallowtail through the flowers. “Tomorrow, we may try to fashion her a net from an old hat veil. Oh, and Henry is starting to catch the ball no matter how I toss it, You should see—" Edward interrupted her words. “Ann, they’re children. They don’t need you to play with them as if you were one too. Leave them to it, why don’t you? Henry is old enough to look after his sister, and I know you’ve plenty to do in here.” A broad wave of his arm inscribed the boundaries of her domain, her life. He offered a smile, as if it could temper the words, and she nodded, feeling the taste of something bitter in her mouth. END SAMPLE

UNDER THE SHADOWS Story Statement: A young mother committed by her husband to a Victorian era mental asylum must survive her confinement and convince doctors and herself that she is sane—or sane enough—to return to the children she loves. ANTAGONIST: Ann’s antagonist is her illness and society’s condemnation and fear of her because of it--embodied in Part I by her husband and sister-in-law who judge her fall into post-partum depression and atypical behavior as wife/mother harshly. In Part II, a far more dangerous version of this condemnation presents in the doctors who seek to keep Ann institutionalized and particularly in Maggie, a hospital attendant who despises her charges and treats them with contempt. While the asylum doctors vary in their attitudes from compassionate to curious to callous, most believe the insane patients in their care don't belong in society and likely never will. They stand in the way of Ann's desire to be deemed sane and go home. Maggie, on the other hand, sees the lunatics in her care as less than fully human which justifies her use of brute force to ensure their compliance and their silence. She will endanger Ann's safety and that of her asylum "sisters," forcing Ann to choose between cooperating (which she believes is the only way to convince doctors she is "cured") and resisting--as any sane person would when subjected to inhumane treatment. BREAKOUT TITLE OPTIONS: Under the Shadows The Asylum Diaries The Care of Fragile Things COMPARABLES: Both my comps share themes of women struggling for autonomy, agency, and credibility in oppressive systems or societies laden with unreasonable expectations. Both comps depict women living under institutional control trying to survive and contemplating who they are and what they might become when (and if) they leave. The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chen, 1/4/2022 Simon & Schuster, (#21 on Amazon, NYT #15, highly acclaimed NYT bestseller, today show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick, finalist for 2022 First Novel Prize—social critique on societal expectations of mothers/women and the ways those deemed “unfit” are often forced to prove their worth according to society’s standards, also has a main character who is placed in somewhat impossible role as a woman in a society that expects both too much perfection and too little capability from her at the same time Night Watch by Jayne Ann Phillips, 9/19/2023 by Knopf, 28th on Amazon in May, 2024, #24 on IndieBound lists, Pulitzer Prize for fiction, sales rank of 7514 on Barnes and Noble site—fascinating setting of post-Civil War state asylum (similar to mine) and life for the women there, themes of survival and resilience along with institutional cruelty tolerated in order to remove difficult people from society, also a mediation on motherhood and sacrifice 3rd comp: The Mad Women’s Ball by Vicoria Mas, sold 175K copies in France, translated in US and adapted into a film for Amazon Prime in 2021, 4200 reviews on Amazon Audience matches: Book clubs, fans of Kate Quinn’s historical settings and multi-faceted heroines, fans of Jodi Piccoult’s social issue themes. The medical history angle in my novel illuminates the early days of psychiatry in the U.S.--how little was known, how much guesswork was involved in treatment and diagnosis, the hopes many had for the success of the asylum movement which grew exponentially during this time period. A Reader's Guide and Author's Notes provide additional historical context and questions that grapple with how mental health treatment has changed but also little we've progressed in areas of diagnosis, treatment, institutionalization, quality psychiatric staffing, and stigmatization. CORE WOUND AND PRIMARY CONFLICT: OPTION A: A young mother committed by her husband to an asylum struggles to survive threats to her safety and master her inner demons so she can convince herself and the world that despite her flaws, she is worthy and strong. OPTION B: A young mother committed to an asylum must survive physical and psychological tests as she struggles to become strong enough to confront her illness and brave enough to risk returning to the world beyond the walls. TWO MORE LEVELS OF CONFLICT: I. INNER CONFLICT: Anne wants to believe she is simply fatigued from childbirth and misunderstood by her husband and in-laws, but she is increasingly worried about the creeping darkness she feels. She imagines her husband Edward has found her to be an unsatisfactory wife, and comments from her sister-in-law Edna even insinuate that perhaps he is tempted to replace her. Ann suspects Edna, who is childless, deems her a poor mother and wants to raise Ann's three children as her own. Whether these beliefs are true or a function of Ann's mental illness isn't clear, but when coupled with the rising post-partum depression Ann is experiencing, they are powerful forces. Ann doubts herself. She struggles to believe she is a good wife or mother. She's not sure if her husband loves her because she's never felt loved. After Ann's birth, her mother suffered from depression and took to her bed for five years before overdosing on laudanum. Ann's father quickly remarried, relinquishing Ann's care to a stepmother who clearly preferred her own children. Thus, Ann has never felt wanted or worthy. As she begins experiencing her own bewildering depression, dark voices in her head suggest that she was never meant to have the life she is trying to achieve, that she is not worthy of being a cherished wife or a good mother, let alone a fully-realized person with anything of value to offer the world. Ann always thought becoming a wife and mother would ease the pain of her childhood and let her rewrite her past, but that hasn't been the case. Although her children have brought her joy and love she has never known, she struggles with anger and frustration in her roles as wife and mother. Her husband understands nothing about the difficulty and exhaustion of her life—the unending housework; low expectations that she do anything beyond chores; the small, stifling world she is confined to as a housewife; the fatigue of many pregnancies and trauma of several miscarriages. Edward simply wants dinner on time, a clean house, and children raised well for his enjoyment. He provides for his family and loves his children, but he isn't interested in Ann's thoughts or feelings. She is realizing, without being able to give voice to it, that women like her have little agency and few choices, and she is increasingly depressed by what seems a life holding little joy or interest beyond her children--who will grow up and leave her in time. Simultaneously, Ann has begun to realize something is wrong with her and is terrified of the shadows she feels engulfing her; they seem almost corporeal at times, their voices dark and menacing. She can’t tell anyone the truth about her mental fragility, her doubts, her feelings of self hatred and despair, her complete inability in recent months to summon the energy to mother her two older children as she used to, her apathy toward her new infant. Given her conflicted inner state, when Ann nearly poisons her son and is confronted with her family’s ultimatum that she must go to the hospital in Indianapolis because she cannot be trusted safely with the children, Ann is torn between fighting to stay and wondering whether the hospital might offer relief from all these feelings and the depression that has pulled her into shadow. The scenes where her husband accuses her of being dangerous, where a commission de lunatico (local judge and doctor) examine her and pronounce her insane, and the family meeting where Edward and her in-laws insist she go away to the asylum in Indianapolis plumb the depths of her despair and doubt. Despite her doubts about herself, Ann is a survivor (although she likely doesn't view herself that way), and she does not just fold under the pressure of the terrors and obstacles she is facing. She doesn't easily accept the powerlessness and socially-prescribed role of women, but reacts with questions, frustration, even fury at times. She also refuses to succumb to her own mental illness, even though it terrifies her. She vows she will not abandon her children to the same bewildering fate she experienced; thus, she allows herself to consider the possibility that becoming an asylum patient might be her only chance to get stronger, prove everyone wrong, and return home to try to have the life she has desired. At some level, her decision to go the asylum willingly shows tremendous courage, the strength to resist the forces compelling her to give up and keep some small agency for herself, and a commitment to hope for a better future. II. SECONDARY CONFLICT: When Ann meets Andrew Magnuson in the hospital garden, she is instantly drawn to him. He is a young medical student--smart, determined, full of excitement for his future career-- who is also attracted to her even though he knows from the moment they meet that she is a patient at the asylum, a lunatic. In their first conversation, he also reveals that he, too, lost his mother to a tragedy that has shaped his desire to be a doctor. He and Ann share the knowledge that grief and loss altered them and shaped what they wanted from life. They feel seen by each other in a way neither of them has ever experienced. Andrew begins to look for Ann as he passes through the hospital grounds on his way to the laboratory building for classes, and he begins stopping to talk with her as she works in the garden or takes the air in the park. He looks forward to their conversations and enjoys sharing details with her from his studies. Their conversations are rich and interesting. Ann finds Andrew's attention flattering. She is unused to anyone wanting to know her thoughts and feelings. Their friendship offers a welcome diversion from the routines and relationships that define her days in the asylum. As Ann and Andrew's friendship deepens, she occasionally shares passages with him from the journal she is keeping as part of her doctor's assigned therapy for mastering her troubling thoughts. She is gratified when he admires her thinking and praises her writing. She has never considered herself good at anything. Because Ann is a patient, Andrew remains wary about pressing her for details of life before the hospital and on the asylum ward unless she offers them. She does not tell him she has a husband and children back in Vincennes because she enjoys being someone different with him. With Andrew, she is attractive for her own sake and despite her flaws. It is tantalizing to her that Andrew values her intellect and skills in ways her husband did not. Ironically, it is only in the asylum that she has felt valued for who she is. She begins to feel tempted by the idea of leaving her family behind, wondering if they are better off without her as her shadow voices insinuate in her thoughts at night. She begins daydreaming about a new life married to Andrew although in her dreams, her children are always with her--further evidence that she has not really come to terms with what she wants from her life. As Ann is beginning to think more seriously about what she feels for Andrew, they quarrel one day when Andrew reveals he has been researching current medical theories on insanity diagnosis and outcomes. This leads to an argument about whether she is “really insane” and whether it is possible for her to be cured. She realizes she has deluded herself that Andrew fully accepts her as she is and grapples the fact that the illness she is beginning to acknowledge to herself may threaten her ability to have both love and freedom. This is a pinchpoint in Ann's growth forcing a decision about whether to love herself as she is or depend on others to validate her. She must also decide whether to throw herself into cooperating with treatment to return to the world and a marriage that has disappointed her so she can get back to the children she loves or to stay in the hospital and continue the relationship with Andrew with all its temptations of a "fresh start." Her conflict/struggle is really about acepting herself (illness and all). Ultimately, she will also need to decide if she can and should try to manage her illness and rebuild her life--including her marriage. She hasn't yet realized that the strategies and strength she is gaining for managing her illness are building her stamina to attempt harder things, like demanding more from her life and strengthening her marriage. She is on the cusp of realizing that she has often waited for other people to love her, expecting that they won't, instead of working to build relationships she wants and deserves. The conflict with Andrew helps her realize she must be more honest with herself and him, decide what she really wants from her life, and confront her own flaws without fearing they make her unlovable. In the next scene, when Andrew comes to apologize for doubting her or making her feel he doesn't accept her as she is, she pulls back as the moment grows intimate and finally tells him she is married and has children who need her. It is a turning point in their relationship from budding romance to the realization that they love each other and have hard choices to face now as a result. SETTINGS: Part I: Sycamore Steet—The action of this part of the novel is confined to the house and back garden in Ann’s home where she lives with her husband Edward and their two children. Keeping all the action in the house matches the confined space in which Ann, like most other women of the time, spends her days. Her world, by definition, is small and limited primarily to her home. The house has a main floor parlor with fireplace and fussier Victorian furniture, along with lace curtains that allow a filtered view of people occasionally passing on the street outside. Adjoining that room is a dining room. At the back of the house are a kitchen/pantry, and smaller sitting room with simpler furnishings where Ann sews in the afternoon. Upstairs are three bedrooms and a bathroom. On the top floor is a small room used by the hired girl Bridget who is staying to help Ann since the last baby arrived and a nursery. Ann’s bedroom looks out on the front of the house. Her husband is using the third bedroom temporarily. Her five-year-old son Henry sleeps in the second bedroom, and her three-year-old daughter Grace and new baby William sleep in the nursery. Behind the house is a carriage house with storage. A wooden fence encloses the back yard area from the back of the house to the carriage house. Flower gardens line the fence perimeter, and a large maple tree fills the middle of the yard with a bench beneath it. Closer to the back wall of the house is a vegetable/herb bed and work spaces for outdoor chores. Part II: Seven Steeples The Central Indiana Hospital for the Insane sits on about 160 acres of land about two miles west of the city of Indianapolis. A horse-drawn streetcar line runs out to the hospital from downtown's Union Station. The grounds are encircled by a tall iron fence and include a 40-acre park with tall shade trees, ornamental gardens, benches, statuary, walkways, and fountains. The grounds contain a 20-acre woods with paths and a creek running through it, acres of farmland, and many buildings (chapel, bakery, engine room, laundry, etc.). The Women’s Building (called Seven Steeples because of its seven Gothic towers) is all brick trimmed in dressed stone and designed following the Kirkbride model for modern asylums. The building has a five-story center tower housing the hospital administrators, doctors' rooms and their offices, the main kitchen, and a public parlor. Three four-story wings stretch out from the center on either side, each set back from the next in receding tiers-- giving the structure a bat-like shape if viewed from above. The wings contain patient wards with the most difficult patients housed furthest from the center building so as to be least disruptive to the public and "better" patients. Each ward has a corridor with patient bedrooms lining it on either side, a parlor with settees and easy chairs, dining room with two long tables seating ten people each, lavatory, and several rooms for staff attendants. Most of the novel’s Part II action takes place in the Fourth Ward where Ann is assigned, the sewing room in the center building, Dr. Bauer's office, and the grounds surrounding Seven Steeples—especially the large, enclosed garden where Ann is allowed to tend flowers and plants as part of her treatment. Patients from various wards march about the grounds for exercise in groups of 10 or more daily, and small groups or individuals deemed not to be flight risks are allowed to enjoy the grounds for hours at a time supervised or even alone if they have earned that privilege. Many patients can regularly be found taking the air by themselves or with others in favorite spots around the park. Also on the grounds is a teaching hospital building, the three-story brick Pathology Laboratory—a state-of-the-art research facility specializing in diseases of the brain. Indiana College of Medicine students attend lectures, labs, and autopsies here conducted by asylum doctors. Physicians from all over the country also come for special presentations and lectures. Indiana's recognized presence as a leader in the new field of psychiatry means that the Pathology Building's tiered auditorium attracts prominent thinkers in the fields of asylum medicine and psychiatry. The doctors and students going to the lab for class or lecture or reading in its second-floor library walk past Seven Steeples, often passing hospital patients on the grounds.