Further on in the book another character, a doctor, appears to see the world Marilyn has created. Marilyn, a catatonic patient, is living her life in a fantasy world she's found within a crack in the sheetrock on her bedroom wall. This technique blurs the distinction between reality and fantasy in a way that leaves the reader with an excellent picture of a mental patient's world. Yet the events still seem to be filtered through the perspective of the main narrator. The story begins in first person as told by one of the patients in the asylum then it switches to third person to tell about other patients as well as doctors. The book is a novel structured like a memoir. Ken Weene's novel shows the worst of people who have been labeled insane while revealing their basic humanity. The behavior of the characters is shocking, but the shock makes sense in the strange logic of their world, a logic that stems from fear, resentment, and a need to find some control over lives that have wandered far from the path of normalcy. Its setting isn't a strange country or a fictional land, but a building that could be a short distance from any of our homes. Memoirs from the Asylum takes its readers to a unique world as it helps them understand the thoughts and feelings of the people who reside there.
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