Series: Great Episodes Genre: Other ISBN: 0152050760 Pages: 221 pages Publisher: Gulliver Books Paperbacks Price: $5.99 Reader Rating: Not rated
Or Give Me Death: A Novel of Patrick Henry's Family by Ann Rinaldi
Description: One of the few novels to deal with the problem of insanity in early America, this opens in 1771, as Patrick Henry's 16-year-old daughter, Patsy, realizes that her mother is going insane. When Mrs. Henry's actions threaten the lives of her two youngest children, the family shut her away in a cellar room for the safety of all and to hide her dementia from the larger community. In 1773, Patsy's younger sister, Anne, takes over the narration, which concludes in 1778 with the breakdown of her brother. Patrick Henry appears at intervals, but for the most part the other family members, and occasionally their slaves, take center stage. Two plot elements seem a bit contrived: Mrs. Henry's anguished plea to Patrick Henry to give her freedom or death (foreshadowing and, the novel intimates, inspiring his most famous speech) and her "second sight" that allows her to predict events. Rinaldi knows how to tell a story, though, and her depiction of the effects of mental illness are true to the period, yet transcend it.