The Lost Women of Azalea Court

Ellen Meeropol

Description

• An Empowering Read for Women: Featuring a group of ordinary women, of diverse ages and experiences, who bond together to find their missing neighbor and bring justice for her and other women
• Probing the nature of evil and justice: Showing the ethical questions asked by the novel: Do we excuse the victim of horrible crimes, of genocide, of the crimes to avoid more trauma? How do we find justice?
• Powerful Family Secrets: Lies and secrets are central to the fabric of domestic life; these themes are endlessly fascinating to readers.
• Brings back characters from previous Meeropol novels: Well-loved characters from House Arrest, Kinship of Clover, and On Hurricane Island return and mix it up in this novel.
• Learning from history: Focusing on how the wrongs of the past are always with us. Do we repeat the mistakes of the past or can we do better?

Sujets

• Holocaust
• Women
• Ghosts
• The Holocaust
• Treatment of mental disorders
• Sexual assault
• Psychiatric hospital
• Woman
• Mental disorder
• Feminism
• The Women
• Asylum
• Ghost
• Fiction
• Holocauste

Informations

• Publié par: Red Hen Press
• Date de parution: 13 septembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781636280509
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

more praise for
ELLEN MEEROPOL’S NOVELS
Her Sister’s Tattoo
“ Her Sister’s Tattoo is all about a family with a multigenerational passion for political activism, but the narrator’s voice is always clear and calm. Meeropol writes with precision, insight and compassion about the most tumultuous moments in human life, whether they happen in public or in private. Above all, she artfully invents a fictional story that enables readers to penetrate some of the agonies and mysteries of a very real case.” —Jonathan Kirsch, Jewish Journal
“One of the great pleasures in reading Her Sister’s Tattoo lies in its attention to the five senses, from patchouli in the air at the opening protest to a child drawing on newsprint with “four fat crayons” to the sight of origami cranes. An exploration about how we make decisions on where our loyalties lie.”—Bethanne Patrick, LitHub
“The themes explored in the book—loyalty, conflicting decisions, right vs wrong, social justice, family relationships—. . . are some of the most challenging interpersonal issues we humans grapple with. The success of Her Sister’s Tattoo is that Meeropol has managed to approach difficult issues with a keen sensitivity. Finding this particular book at this particular time in history seemed quite serendipitous, as all of us confront difficulties during our own national time of crisis.”—Tracey Barnes Priestley, Times Standard
Kinship of Clover
“ Kinship of Clover advances a deep appreciation of difference and of the bonds of love that provide sustenance in a fracturing, threatened world. It is a wondrous example of how a political novel, in the right hands, can achieve high artistry.”—Céline Keating, Necessary Fiction
“If a novel can serve as both a harbinger of the future and a parable for our fraught political times, then Ellen Meeropol has done it again.” —Lisa C. Taylor, Midwest Book Review
“Ellen Meeropol’s new novel, Kinship of Clover , is heartbreaking and haunting, with a cast of finely drawn and deeply memorable characters.”—Frank O. Smith, Portland Press Herald
On Hurricane Island
“ On Hurricane Island is a chilling, Kafkaesque story about what happens when the United States does to citizens at home what it has done to others abroad. Meeropol puts the reader right into the middle of these practices through characters about whom you really care, and a story you can’t put down.”—Michael Ratner, Center for Constitutional Rights
“I didn’t expect to find myself reading a page-turner, but that’s really what the novel is—and aspires to be. The novel forces us to contemplate things we’d rather not think could be true, and wonder. . . . The novel’s stark but clear setting rose to character status, and its very cinematic descriptions of action were clear enough to watch events unfold. That’s to say I found myself casting the movie in my head; I think you will, too.” —Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser, Valley Advocate
House Arrest
“Meeropol raises bold questions and allows her handful of main characters to debate the merits: What constitutes a family, and who decides which variations qualify? When is it acceptable to bend the rules, and at what expense? Is it possible to separate actions from consequences? . . . This multi-genre novel defies easy classification. Part medical mystery, morality tale and psychological drama, it’s above all a terrific read.” —Joan Silverman, The Portland Press Herald
“[A]n original, riveting, and suspenseful yet warm and sensitive story that deftly explores the concepts of right and wrong, the unequal balance between rigid law and common sense, the unintended consequences of political activism, and the decisions people make when faced with tough life choices.”—William D. Bushnell, The New Maine Times
“In this strong first novel, an unusual relationship develops between a home-care nurse and the pregnant cult member under house arrest to whom she is assigned prenatal visits . . . Meeropol’s work is thoughtful and tightly composed, unflinching in taking on challenging subjects and deliberating uneasy ethical conundrums.”— Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

The Lost Women of Azalea Court
Copyright © 2022 by Ellen Meeropol
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner.
Book design by Mark E. Cull
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Meeropol, Ellen, author.
Title: The lost women of Azalea Court : a novel / Ellen Meeropol.
Description: First Edition. | Pasadena, CA: Red Hen Press, 2022.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022006687 (print) | LCCN 2022006688 (ebook) | ISBN 9781636280493 (paperback) | ISBN 9781636280509 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PS3613.E375 L67 2022 (print) | LCC PS3613.E375 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006687
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006688
The National Endowment for the Arts, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Ahmanson Foundation, the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, the Max Factor Family Foundation, the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Foundation, the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission and the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Audrey & Sydney Irmas Charitable Foundation, the Kinder Morgan Foundation, the Meta & George Rosenberg Foundation, the Allergan Foundation, the Riordan Foundation, Amazon Literary Partnership, and the Mara W. Breech Foundation partially support Red Hen Press.

First Edition
Published by Red Hen Press
www.redhen.org
This novel is dedicated to Rebecca and Zelda and
William and Harriet, and all the other ill, lost,
and inconvenient residents of Northampton State Hospital.

Author’s Note
The Lost Women of Azalea Court is a work of fiction. The Northampton State Hospital treated patients from 1858 to 1993, but Azalea Court and its inhabitants exist only on these pages. Names, characters, places, and events are either the product of my imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to businesses or institutions, is coincidental and unintended.

CONTENTS
The Women
Friday Morning
Lexi Blum
Eric Golden
Asher Blum
Eric Golden
Detective Sandra McPhee
Asher Blum
Evelyn Turner
Gandalf Simon
Arnold North
Gloria
Donnie Turner
Friday Afternoon
The Women
Gandalf Simon
Timothy Beaujolais
Aggie North
Gloria
Detective Sandra Mcphee
Lexi Blum
Iris Blum
Morgan Golden-Kaufman
Eric Golden
Asher Blum
Donnie Turner
Jess Simon
Timothy Beaujolais
Aggie North
Gloria
Detective Mcphee
Lexi Blum
Asher Blum
Eric Golden
Iris Blum
Evelyn Turner
Gandalf Simon
Timothy Beaujolais
Friday Evening
The Women
Arnie North
Gloria
Detective Mcphee
Winda Beaujolais
Saturday Morning
Lexi Blum
Eric Golden
Iris Blum
Donnie Turner
Gandalf Simon
Timothy Beaujolais
Gloria
Detective Mcphee
Lexi Blum
Eric Golden
Asher Blum
Evelyn Turner
Jess Simon
Saturday Early Afternoon
The Women
Gloria
Detective Mcphee
Lexi Blum
Eric Golden
Gloria
Saturday Late Afternoon
The Women
Donnie Turner
Gandalf Simon
Aggie North
Gloria
Evelyn Turner
Saturday Evening
Detective Mcphee
Lexi Blum
Iris Blum
Asher Blum
Donnie Turner
Evelyn Turner
Gandalf Simon
Gloria
Lexi Blum
Detective Mcphee
Late Saturday Night
The Women
Lexi Blum
Iris Blum
Evelyn Turner
Lexi Blum
Sunday Morning
The Women
Sunday Noon
The Women
Acknowledgments
Biographical Note
THE WOMEN
Everything changed when Iris went missing.
Before that morning, if you had asked anyone living in the six bungalows on Azalea Court if we were close, we would have rolled our eyes. We’re not one of those neighborhoods that celebrate holidays with grab bag gift exchanges or host cheerful red, white, and blue progressive dinners where you have appetizers at one house and off to another for the next course. We mostly respect each other’s privacy and stay in our own homes and yards.
That is, until Iris disappeared.
People often ask us if Azalea Court is cursed. “How could it not be?” they insist. It’s a balloon-on-a-string shaped road, though that description implies celebration and fun and that’s not really us. Our small homes sit on the grounds of the former state mental hospital, where thousands of lost souls were incarcerated over the course of a century and a half. By the time our six wood-frame bungalows were built on the edge of the hospital grounds to house medical staff and their families, the state hospital was no longer burdened with “insane” or “lunatic” in its title, but it was still regarded with deep suspicion by the town. A developer renovated the houses in the early 1950s, and another repurposed them as condos fifty years later when the nearby Hospital Hill neighborhood was constructed.
Long after the last patients were transferred out and the crumbling red brick buildings torn down or gutted for apartments, the stigma persisted. “How can you live there?” asked our classmates in high school and acquaintances in the grocery store. They rarely waited for an answer.
Tucked away in a swamp maple grove, our small court with its center circle of grass triggered suspicion in town; they read our secluded location as unsociable. Azalea Court is not easy to find, if you don’t already know it. Because the court is hidden from the road and accessed by a narrow lane off Prince Street, looking for the street sign is unreliable. For some unfathomable reason, stealing it is a time-honored tradition of the high school football team. We sometimes joke about how many local teens have a green metal Azalea Court sign swinging from a nail on their bedroom wall. Some of us feel that the petty vandalism is aimed at the state hospital and specifically at those of us who once worked there, but oth