****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Recently, my wife and I had coincidently visited the site of the Traverse City, Michigan Asylum during a weekend trip. We had found that they had turned parts of it into an upscale collection of shops, boutiques, and a winery. This coincides with the theme of the book, which exposes not only the mysterious background to an age of mental disorder hospitals, but their abandonment, and importance of their preservation. The book begins with a great (and worthy) recollection of a fantastic doctor, James Decker Munson, who was appointed as chief medical superintendent of the Northern Michigan Asylum throughout most of its operating days. The book is loaded with not only great and mysterious photos of many details of the asylum, but also with coinciding short stories, recollections, and even excerpts of factual data obtained during the course of its active days. The book is enough to spark much interest and sets course on understanding a bit of "the behind the scenes" of an asylum's function, but leaves you with a slightly open-ended spark for a wanting to know more.
