Plot Overview
Girl, Interrupted does not follow a linear plot; instead, the year is 1967 in the memoir and 18-year-old Kaysen opens by discussing the possibility of a parallel universe (insanity) and her visit to a doctor after an overdosing suicide attempt. The doctor advocates her to an institution only after a 20 minute check-up, which was a testament to the state of mental healthcare at the time, while the rest of the novel describes parts of her life at McLean Hospital. Shortly after she enters the hospital, family friend and Nobel laureate James Watson comes to visit her and offers to take her away, but she refuses, convinced that she should stay the prescribed course of treatment. Although she planned to stay for a few weeks she stayed there for 2 years. During her stay, the author meets her fellow patients Polly, Cynthia, Lisa, Georgina and regularly interacts with the staff members Valerie, Dr. Wick, and Mrs. McWeeney. Kaysen reflects often upon the nature of her sickness, which we later find out is borderline personality disorder, describing reality as becoming too "dense" so that she has difficulty making sense of visual patterns. Kaysen also wonders if sanity is a false construct, as she connects the fact that McLean is famous for housing creative minds and wonders if those kinds of people, mostly poets, are more susceptible to madness. Finally, the author experiences a period of depersonalization, somewhat fitting when considering the time context of the Vietnam War. At the end of the novel, Kaysen stays in contact with her roommate, Georgina from McLean, and she seems to be carrying out a fairly normal life, married and living on a farm. She also runs into Lisa again and notes that while Lisa seemingly has a new persona and is relatively stable, her conversation quirks and behavior suggests a facade of sorts, leading Kaysen to ponder if their time at McLean really resulted in recovery. Kaysen also reveals that she was inspired to title her novel as such based on Johannes Vemeer’s Girl Interrupted at Her Music and discusses how her perspective of the piece has changed over the course of her life.