The Girl Puzzle: A Story of Nelly Bly / Kate Braithwaite

I'd somehow got the idea that The Girl Puzzle was nonfiction, probably owing to its subtitle, but it's a fictionalized account of the events surrounding American journalist Nellie Bly's undercover investigation into a mental institution and how this experience shaped the rest of her life up to the very end. We alternate between two time periods: 1887, when Nellie accepts an assignment from The World to report on the Blackwell's Island Insane Asylum for Women from the point of view of an inmate; and the years 1919 to 1922 when Beatrice, one of her secretaries, relates Nellie's efforts on behalf of women and children in desperate circumstances despite her declining health.

I think this book succeeds brilliantly on one main point: that of demonstrating how, at the time, many women ended up in such establishments simply for being deemed "inconvenient" in some way, either by their family or by society at large, and through what means they were progressively stripped of their dignity. To a certain degree, it also provides some background into Nellie's steadfast determination to act for the benefit of vulnerable individuals by unveiling her difficult family circumstances, in addition to what she observed at the Asylum.

Although I enjoyed this novel overall, and was absolutely riveted by the chapters chronicling Nellie's 10 days in the Asylum in spite of the horrors she and the other women endured, my interest dropped considerably once she returned to "normal" life, and I admit I often found that the "present day" sequences told in Beatrice's voice got in the way. As for the ending, in my opinion, it falls rather flat.

I purchased this book online.

Rating: ***