Bly, Nellie, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Susan Glaspell. Behind These Walls: Three Stories of Women Who Saw the Truth. Forward by Deb Rainey. OE-Publishing, 2026
Reason read: This is a selection from LibraryThing’s Early Review program.
Deb Rainey curated three classic or public domain stories by Nellie Bly, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Susan Glaspell focusing on women who were seen as fragile, passive, emotional, or uncomprehending by society. Because of their mental illness or cognitive instability, these women were misunderstood, dismissed, disbelieved, silenced, sidelined, isolated, ignored, confined, constrained, and controlled by the people who were supposed to care for them. Some women were suffering from postpartum depression and sentenced to time in a mental facility.
the three stories:
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman – John says, John, says, John says… the story of a woman controlled by her physician husband.
Ten Days in a Madhouse by Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Jane Cochran) -After acting mentally ill and getting herself committed to the insane ward on Blackwell’s Island in New York, Nellie spent ten days observing the cruelty inflicted on the patients. Her reporting forced specific changes like improving food, clothing, and sanitation issues. I can only imagine how scary it must have been for Nellie to get herself committed to such a place. She must have had incredible faith in her editor to get her out (even though he admitted he didn’t know how he was going to do it).
A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell – Glaspell concerned herself with gender justice.
I am not a big fan of repetition, especially when it comes to words on a page. In the forward to Behind These Walls Deb Rainey uses the same descriptors over and over when introducing three stories: dismissed (3x), disbelieved, controlled, silenced (4x), isolated, ignored, confined (2x), constrained, misunderstood.
Music: “Home Sweet Home,” “Rock-a-bye Baby,”
