In 1939, orphaned thirteen-year-old Evalina Toussaint is admitted to Highland Hospital in Ashville, North Carolina, a mental institution known for its innovative treatments for nervous disorders and addictions. Taken under the wing of the hospital's most notable patient, Zelda Fitzgerald, Evalina witnesses the cascading events leading up to the tragic fire of 1948 that killed nine women in the locked ward. Through an artful blending of fiction and fact, Lee Smith had created a mesmerizing novel about a world apart.
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