{"product_id":"the-snake-pit-9781598536805","title":"The Snake Pit","description":"\u003cb\u003eA 75th anniversary edition of the landmark novel that forever changed the way we think about mental illness and its treatment\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAfter experiencing a nervous breakdown in 1940, novelist Mary Jane Ward was misdiagnosed as schizophrenic and committed to Rockland State Hospital in Orangeburg, New York. From that horrific experience came this landmark novel. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Snake Pit\u003c\/i\u003e tells the story of Virginia Cunningham, a young white middle-class woman who finds herself in a psychiatric hospital with no memory of how she got there. It opens with Virginia in a highly confused state of mind, the reader initially as challenged as Virginia to make sense of her surroundings. Virginia's treatments seem a series of cruel punishments inflicted on her for crimes she cannot name, while the penalty for failing to follow the hospital's many seemingly arbitrary rules is transfer to another, even worse ward. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe novel was memorably adapted for the screen two years after it was published, with Olivia de Havilland playing the role of Virginia, its powerful and ambivalent conclusion softened for Hollywood. Together, the book and film had an outsized influence on popular perceptions of mental illness, and \u003ci\u003eThe Snake Pit\u003c\/i\u003e is often credited with setting in motion important investigative journalism and the introduction of legislation at the state level to reform the care and treatment of the mentally ill. Too long out of print, Ward's unforgettable novel belongs in the company of Sylvia Plath's \u003ci\u003eThe Bell Jar\u003c\/i\u003e, Ken Kesey's \u003ci\u003eOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest\u003c\/i\u003e, and Joanne Greenberg's \u003ci\u003eI Never Promised You a Rose Garden\u003c\/i\u003e--three books it influenced or inspired.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Library of America\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 06\/01\/2021\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781598536805\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 360","brand":"Mary Jane Ward","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39956681261237,"sku":"9781598536805","price":13.56,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_92952df1-7d5f-472e-81b7-5ba5d9598f1f.jpg?v=1620221959","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/the-snake-pit-9781598536805","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}