A CONVERSATION WITH THE AUTHOR
How did you first encounter Elizabeth’s story? When did you decide that you wanted to write about her?
Before I even knew her name, I actively went looking for Elizabeth’s story. The background to that quest: In the fall of 2017, the world was set ablaze by the #MeToo movement, and I wanted to write about some of the issues being raised. Namely, why hadn’t women been listened to—and believed—before? Too often, it seemed to me, women had been silenced and discredited with the claim that we were crazy. Was there any woman in history, I wondered, who had been declared insane by a patriarchal society for speaking her mind, but who had somehow, against the odds, proved her sanity and prevailed? （Because I wanted a happy ending for my book!） I went in search of this mystery woman, only hoping she existed. And on January 15, 2018, after having fallen down a rabbit hole of internet searches about women and madness and insane asylums, I first read about Elizabeth Packard in a University of Wisconsin essay that I randomly found online.
That first reference was just a single paragraph in length, but a few Google clicks later, having learned a little more about her life, I was hopeful I had found the central protagonist of my next book. （I noted in my diary she looked “promising.”） Yet it wasn’t until I had completed my due diligence—reading the other books about her that existed at that time so as to be sure that my vision for her story, a work of narrative nonfiction, hadn’t already been published—that I knew for definite she was “The One.”
Elizabeth’s story relies heavily on her personal tenacity. How do you think she cultivated that strength? What resources do you draw on when you feel like giving up?
I think Elizabeth’s strength is absolutely remarkable. Ultimately, I think the bedrock to it was that she knew she was in the right, but even more remarkably, she maintained the confidence to insist on that truth, something with which some of us struggle. Her faith clearly helped too.
What resources do I draw on? Hope, knowledge that things will always get better （because nothing lasts forever）， and sometimes （e.g. when writing a book!） the knowledge that you have to put the hard work in to enjoy the outcome. Nothing worthwhile is easy.
Elizabeth is a great role model for standing up for yourself and always following the truth. Who are your role models, historical or modern?
My role models are the radium girls, who I wrote about in another book. These incredible women are, to me, inspirational beacons of courage and strength. Whenever I’m anxious, I always think of how they might have responded to a situation or simply of what they went through, and they give me the strength to carry on.
You aptly note the ways that our public discourse hasn’t changed when it comes to denouncing opponents by calling them “insane.” Why does that technique have such staying power? How do you think we can combat it?
I think it has staying power because it’s so dismissive. The accuser isn’t even trying to engage with or debate their opponent, probably because they fear they may be bested. I think part of combating it is actually already happening: demystifying those who are genuinely mentally ill and treating them with love and understanding, and with an appreciation that either we or someone we know is likely to suffer with mental health issues. With that changed approach, the former “slur” of being called crazy has less power. And the accusation itself is revealed to be fearful and hollow in nature.
When writing nonfiction, you can’t always expect events to be “story-shaped.”？What kind of work do you do to make a cohesive narrative out of complicated true events? What’s the hardest part of that process? The most fun part?
The key thing for me is to complete my research before I write a word of the book. Doing so not only enables me to see the big picture, from which I’ll craft the narrative, but it also often throws up intriguing twists that enhance the book’s plot. I first plot all my research into a chronological timeline, and only after that do I plot the book itself, which is different, because for dramatic purposes you may want to include “reveals,” etc. Even as I’m researching, though, I’ve got an antenna quivering for possible end-of-chapter slam-dunk quotations and potentially dramatic scenes.
The hardest part of the process? Two answers. One, because I’m writing nonfiction, at times the historic sources simply don’t exist to tell you exactly what happened. That can be really frustrating. Two, almost the opposite problem, the act of sifting through the sources and the data that you do have and deciding what—or perhaps more importantly, what not—to include. It’s essential to know the story you want to tell from those sources and to stick to it, but that’s often easier said than done. I find the editing process is usually essential to help truly distill the narrative you’re crafting.