"A compelling act of connection, leavened with humour,
clear-eyed yet packed with hope." --Ann-Marie MacDonald
A rare work of narrative non-fiction that illuminates a world most
of us try not to see- the daily lives of the severely mentally ill,
who are medicated, marginalized, locked away and shunned.
SUSAN DOHERTY is a Montreal writer whose award-winning debut novel, A Secret Music, was published in 2015. She worked on staff for Maclean's, and freelanced for The International Herald Tribune, La Tribune de Gen ve, and The Independent in London, and for eighteen years ran her own advertising production company. She has served on the boards of the Royal Conservatory of Music, the Quebec Writers' Federation and Nazareth House, a home for those afflicted by addiction and homelessness. Since 2009, she has volunteered at the Douglas Institute, a psychiatric hospital, working with people living with severe mental illness. She is married to the educator Hal Hannaford, and has two children.
Winner of the 2019 Quebec Writers' Federation Literary
Awards Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction
“This is a book I wish I could have written. Susan Doherty’s eyes,
ears and heart show us professionals who our patients
really are and what their lives are really like. We
should all see the person before the diagnosis.” —Dr. David Bloom,
medical chief, Psychiatric Disorders Programme, Douglas
Institute
“As a neuroscientist who understands the brain and its disorders, I
know I still share the unconscious negative bias towards patients
with schizophrenia. Yet in the startling detail of these stories
about lives lost, Susan Doherty reveals the enduring humanity that
resides within the souls of all persons suffering from this
dreadful disease. She has given a voice to those unfortunate human
beings who have long been unheard.” —Dr. G. Rees Cosgrove,
neurosurgeon, Harvard Medical School
“I’m thirty years old and have been in and out of the system for
twelve years. It’s about time a book came out that showed the
mentally ill the way we actually are—as sentient and as competent
as everyone else, though we might appear to be different. I loved
reading these stories of unfairly marginalized people, some of whom
I know personally. This book is the start of greater acceptance.”
—Katharine Cunningham, a resident of Nazareth Community
“Being able to reach out to people with a severe mental disorder
without the self-protective measures that come with being a mental
health ‘professional’ is an uncommon gift. Susan Doherty has it,
obviously. Her account of her relationships with people with severe
mental illness will bring you very close to them, and safely so.
Reading her book might even make you a better person.” —Dr. Pierre
Etienne, associate professor of clinical psychiatry, McGill
University
“This compassionate, perceptive and absorbing book chronicles the
lives of people who have not let themselves be entirely crushed by
the random cruelty of what used to be called insanity. Since more
than one in four people is touched by mental illness personally or
in their families, I recommend this readable, valuable book to
everyone.” —Dr. James Farquhar, psychiatrist, Douglas Institute
“With her brave and generous reporting from the front lines of
intense human suffering, Susan Doherty delivers a fundamental
challenge to everyone inside and outside the mental health system:
what do we owe people who have lost their minds? Her poignant and
harrowing profiles of men and women diagnosed with schizophrenia
make a compelling case for the transformative power of personal
compassion and tenacity.” —James FitzGerald, author of What
Disturbs OurBlood: A Son’s Quest to Redeem the Past
“A luminous, fierce and loving portrait of our brothers and sisters
who suffer in ways that can appear bewildering and frightening;
that can deplete the compassion even of those who love them
most—ways in which the abiding human need for connection is
obscured by personal chaos. The Ghost Garden in itself is a signal
and compelling act of connection, leavened with humour, clear-eyed
yet packed with hope.” —Ann-Marie MacDonald, novelist and
playwright
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