An Angel At My Table

We meet the young Janet and her large railway worker's family during the Depression. Her hair is a mushroom cloud of red curls and she's very stout. She gets into scrapes at school and home, but shows signs of poetic genius. The teenage Janet seems headed for a solitary life as a teacher. By the time she's a young woman, two of her sisters have died in separate drowning incidents. Her pathological shyness only adds to her spiritual and sexual loneliness. She commits a suicide attempt, which leads to her institutionalisation. At the hospital, where she stays for eight years, she undergoes more than 200 electroshock treatments. Then, although still morbidly bashful, she goes to England on her own and ends up in Spain. More of her works get published and her English agent encourages her to write bestsellers. (Jeanne Cooper, Washington Post)

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