It Was More Fun In Hell
For centuries women have been the victims of abuse under the label of ‘mental health’. Author Jimmy Smyth tackles the uncomfortable truth about the brutality exacted upon women by families, friends, clergy, doctors, nurses and the state in his latest work It Was More Fun In Hell.
The former health service professional has undertaken detailed research into the horrors endured by women – often tortured and abused – who were left disenfranchised and powerless. Physical and mental pain is told in unvarnished reporting; and focuses on the terrible case of one young woman, Frances Farmer.
The fact that so much pain was part of society is a shocking truth that Jimmy felt needs told before we forget, or repeat the horror…
The Journey
At the age of seventeen, Mary Harper has already led a full and hectic life; surviving poverty, hardship, and an alcoholic father, to become a beautiful, charismatic and charming young woman. Mary has a job that she loves; her first boyfriend; wonderful caring friends and money to spend – at last everything is seemingly perfect. That is, until one fateful night when Mary’s world comes crashing down around her.
Having been brutally raped, Mary slowly becomes stripped of everything that made her life great – her happiness, her freedom, her family, her friends and finally, her sanity. After her rapist poisons her father’s mind with vicious lies; a now-pregnant Mary gets a diagnosis that will change her life forever and once she’s locked up in the Lunatic Asylum, it seems like Mary has lost all hope of ever living a normal, happy life. What will happen to her child? How will she cope with the violence, abuse and brutal so-called treatments in the Lunatic Asylum? Will Mary ever be free from the ‘Big House’? Will she ever find the love and happiness that she deserves and so desperately craves?