This haunting book brings back the forgotten voices of mentally ill patients

“This is a woman’s text, lifted into another consciousness by the mundane wonder of print, as it is in this moment, and its very existence is a small miracle.” begins The Ghost in the Throat, the writer and poet’s remarkable prose debut. Dorian ni Griofa. After deciding to translate Caoninad art ui reale, a long elegiac poem by Eiblin Duv ní Chonaill, written after her husband was murdered in 1773, ní Gliofa found that her life and the life of the poet were blurred, even though centuries had passed.

In her new book, the dead saidNí Gliofa once again turns his attention to the women of his past. Only this time, her subjects are patients in a derelict Victorian asylum in Cork. When the reader, a passerby, notices that the hospital is being converted into a modern apartment complex, he begins digging into the hospital’s archives and learns about patients such as violinist and artist Anna Martha. She loses everything when her father dies, becomes an apprentice nurse, breaks down, and ends up working at the very institution where she briefly worked. Bridget returns to Ireland pregnant after being assaulted by her employer in America, and is carted through Cork in the middle of the night in labor. Said the Dead, which follows, is a bright, genre-defying exploration of the history we’re in danger of losing when women are only remembered through the systems in which they were included.

Here, Dorian Ní Griofa talks about her obsession with archives and the stories of the patients she finds there.

Katie Tobin: throat ghostwas about the dangers of slipping into another woman’s life. in the dead saidthe leader disappears into dozens of lives at once. Is this an element that you wanted to take further after writing your first book?

Doirian Ní Grifa: What we’re touching on there is something that feels very strange to me about writing. Where do ideas come from and what draws us to certain subjects? What I’m learning about myself as a writer, and it really feels like a slow process of learning about myself, is that I’m very drawn to women’s lives and I’m drawn to learning more about women. Unfortunately, I’m also not good with boundaries. So when we follow that curiosity and try to learn more about someone’s past life, we often find ourselves drawn very deeply into that life and our own efforts to learn more about it. For me as a writer, it’s important to welcome the reader into the chaos (sometimes bordering on obsession) of the process, and how difficult it is to let go of these lives. Or accepting rather than trying to fill in the gaps in the historical record.

KT: You spent years reading patient casebooks in the Cork City and County Archives. Was there a moment or voice that made you know this was your book?

DNG: What really caught my attention was the voice of Dr. Lucia, the medical assistant at the hospital. Her voice was the most present voice I’ve ever encountered on a record. Every time I noticed a speech by a woman who was sitting in the same room with me at the time, I read it and it really moved me. At the same time, it never felt like enough, because it was always just a piece. It was vivid, but I also felt angry at its brevity. Even when I wanted to contact the women themselves directly, everything was mediated by this doctor’s report. But she was the one with the pen. Other women’s voices also spoke to me. Your namesake, Kate, says: “Ireland is mine” and “There is a Catholic revolt…I have the money.” These almost defiant statements really resonated with me.

KT: Do you think something is lost when you transform historical space in this way?

DNG: In modern Ireland, where we are facing a serious housing crisis, I think we need to address this issue more directly. The outskirts of towns and villages and the centers of cities that we pass every day are dotted with abandoned buildings. It’s so frustrating to see buildings boarded up when there are people in urgent need of accommodation.

While writing this book, I often parked outside the facility, felt the building’s shadow cast from the car as I typed, and watched children play on what was once the terrace of the asylum. I think that provides part of the answer. No matter how difficult the history may be there, they may bring their children there, raise them there, have a new life and a new history, and instead of overwriting that awful history, they may be there, creating friction alongside it.

“For me as a writer, it is important to welcome the reader into the confusing process, sometimes almost obsessively.” – Doyrian Ní Grifa

KT: In a similar vein, the Reader reverts a patient’s name from a pseudonym to their real name after a conversation with an archivist. Even though so much has been taken away from women, she doesn’t feel it’s right to take away women’s names. Did you feel there was a conflict between protecting these women and giving them justice by sharing their stories?

DNG: Yes, I felt and still feel a great sense of tension throughout this book. These are people who are suffering and have been institutionalized, and there are serious ethical issues with this. But I also felt that their lives deserved to be remembered. As I spent years in the archive, I felt like I was building a living archive inside my body. I realized I could only hold onto it temporarily. And then I die and those memories die with me. That’s why I felt it was important to write about them. This short human body became a living archive of their stories. I wanted to create a different kind of archive in ink and paper so that others could read about these lives, and so that they could come to life again in the imaginations of other humans and in the bodies of other humans. I know that this is just the basic mechanism of reading, but I just couldn’t get over that surprise, how precious the act of reading is. I am very aware that they do not consent to this being written about. All I can say is that I tried to do the right thing for them.

KT: Were there any topics that were particularly difficult to write about?

DNG: Man, I had a hard time. I am very conscious that my writing style is heavily influenced by gender, and I have read several case files from the male side of psychiatric hospitals. But it was scary because there was so much sexual violence and violence. I was not strong enough to endure such pain.

KT: I love reading the acknowledgments of most books. Your email thanks Paula Rego for drawing Angel. [you] To see what this book wanted. ” How did this painting influence your writing process?

DNG: I’m very happy that you noticed. Paula Rego was really important to me and her paintings were very powerful. Whenever I was writing something at home, I would paste a small print of that drawing on the bulletin board on my desk next to my bed. The entire book feels like it’s encapsulated in a tornado that Paula Rego has painted on canvas. Things like the strength of your gaze, your posture, and the richness of the folds in your dress. Seeing that, I felt I had to do my best to respond to that rebellion and power. We often imagine the lives of the women in this asylum as powerless, yet they had power and strength. They articulated it through their case files, before they left the institution, and often throughout their lives afterwards. Each of them had a unique power, and I wanted to document that power in this book and celebrate what an amazing people they were.

Said the Dead by Doireann Ní Ghríofa is published by Faber & Faber and is on sale now.