By this time in the novel I was championing Nelly so strongly, I almost had a placard in my hands and felt like standing on a box in the middle of Roosevelt island to tell the world what she was doing and why. Having already read Louisa Treger's earlier books, 'The Lodger' and 'The Dragon Lady', I was really looking forward to 'Madwoman'.

I fairly leapt at the chance to read Louise Treger’s fictionalised narrative of Elizabeth Cochran who wrote under the pseudonym of Nellie Bly, having always been fascinated by her remarkable story. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Nellie however refuses to accept no for an answer and somewhat recklessly promises Colonel Cockerill, managing editor of The World, an insider’s story on life inside the notorious insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island. Her dream of a career in law lies in tatters, her mother’s second marriage is a disaster but all these experiences will shape her character and her future.Trigger warnings: forced institutionalizing, self- induced vomiting (not ed related), drugging, sexist notions, use of dated labels (“lunatics” etc.

Louisa Treger takes us deep inside the mind of an extraordinary woman, whose ambition to succeed in a male world leads her to the very brink of madness. It all sounded perfectly plausible to me and I wouldn’t be able to tell you what was fact or what was fiction.Feeling she has gone insane herself, Nellie really starts to question her assignment and agreement to do this. Looking into her eyes, Nellie saw that there was a grief only beheld in lunatic asylums, a grief so deep and black that its victim was submerged beyond reach, far more wretched than a criminal. Madwoman by Louisa Treger was a fascinating historical novel based on the life and trailblazing work of the woman who became known as Nellie Bly. A determined young woman, who has survived crisis after crisis following her beloved father's sudden death and her mother taking up with an abusive man, she is a survivor - who perhaps however sees herself reflected rather too clearly in the Blackwell's inmates. She captures his attention with a dare-devil idea of pretending to be a madwoman and report about the asylum on the Blackwell’s island, known for the highest mortality rate, where proper investigation of conditions is needed.