Songs of Three Islands: A Memoir [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

 

 

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Here is a memoir that brings to life five generations of the famed Carnegie family and their bonds and emotional shackles in a group of islands owned by them. Millicent Monks's writing is evocative from the first page: she summons up her own memories of Cumberland Island and informs us of events in the lives of other family members in language that recalls in turn Henry James, Edith Wharton and Jean Rhys, even a touch of George Eliot at moments. This is history written in a strain of personal recall of lives long distant, apart, both gracious and wild; the fateful disasters are painfully researched but 'accepted' by the author. Both the wealth and the renown of the family are remote from the narrative, except that Thomas and his descendants could afford to found and sustain communities on the islands. Monks' writing draws the reader into the tragic yet poetic truths of mental illness as well as childhood joys in surroundings of faraway offshore beauty. I could not put the book down.

Millicent Monk's current book, "Songs of Three Islands," raises four major issues for the reader to consider:

1. The assertion that there is mental instability passed down in four generations on the female side. [Speculation]

2. The writer's conclusion that her mother, Lucy, may have had borderline personality disorder (BPD), and possibly Aunt "Negie" before her, and that her daughter, "Cassandra," has inherited this disturbance.
(See p.145, 20 and 218) [All speculation.]

3. The problem of inaccuracies and misleading statements in the book that are damaging to family members, past and present.

4. The problem for "Cassandra" is how to:
(a)prevent publication; and
(b)present a private and public objection to negative,damaging and speculative material in this book, within the constraints of a powerful family organization.

In considering Issue No. 4, the reader should consider p.139:
"Some years later, we came to feel we never should have left her ("Cassandra") at McLean, both because of my subsequent experience with the psychiatrist there and because there appeared to be no real improvement." Left between the ages of 15-21 with no real improvement? What is not said is, not only was there no real improvement, but real damage was done by McLean's treatments and lack of supervision, which included solitary confinement, sexual assault by a staff member, multiple psychiatric medications, including heavy doses of the neuroleptic, thorazine (p.131).

[Note: Dr. Peter Breggin of Harvard Medical School has said that "All neuroleptics produce an enormous variety of potentially severe and disabling neurological impairments at high rate of occurrence, and they are among the most toxic agents ever administered to people."]

"Cassandra's" extended stays at McLean damaged her physical, mental and social functioning; she entered McLean at age 15 when she was too young to make a responsible and informed decision as to the value of McLean's treatment. Her parents did not correctly assess the potential for damage at McLean; they permitted potentially dangerous psychiatric drugs to be administered for the better part of 6 years, isolating "Cassandra" from the normal world, friends, and family members.

Issue No. 2, BPD: This diagnosis is entirely speculative. Frequent reference is made to "Cassandra's" childhood and adult outbursts of "rage" as being possibly linked to BPD. Outbursts of rage can be the result of neurological damage, at any age, i.e., a blow to the head; damage to the brain by drugs or medications; damage to the brain/nervous system by physical or mental violence, inappropriate treatments, including protracted use of psychiatric drugs, lengthy confinement in an institution, including physical restraints and solitary confinement, deprivation of normal childhood activities and normal companionship.

It is not likely that mental illness was passed down in the family through Millie's Aunt "Negie" or Cassandra's maternal grandmother, Lucy. Millicent's speculation that Aunt "Negie" and Lucy were mentally dysfunctional because of BPD cannot be proved. It is far more likely that Aunt "Negie," whose husband died in 1886, leaving her a widow for 16 years with nine children, suffered from partial isolation, family stress, failing health, or a disease of old age. Millicent's mother, Lucy, must have been severely depressed at being married to a highly abusive, promiscuous drunk. A drunk who, privately and publickly, abused and disgraced her. Lucy's neurotic and depressive behavior was likely the outcome of marital experiences, and not necessarily a symptom of BPD. Millicent, herself, says that, as a child, she was isolated in a dysfunctional, violent household in Boston, and disturbed by her parent's fighting. She was physically neglected and frightened and began to live in a fantasy world, suffering depression, fear and disassociation. Millicent is her mother's victim.

"Songs of Three Islands" floats in the half-drowned imagery of decay, violence and death. The good Carnegie name muddied by passing time and painful recollection; the islands become a retreat from reality and a reminder of death. It is sad that Andrew Carnegie's name is invoked to sell this horror story.

Throughout the story, Millicent's daughter, son and granddaughter appear under pseudonyms. All are well known in their hometown, a venerable Atlantic seaport where gossip flourishes. Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, no stranger to family troubles, firmly advised her staff: "Some things are best left unsaid." Unsaid and unsung, she might have added.

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