The Shutter of Snow – Emily Holmes Coleman (1930)

Today is the start of the 1930club, hosted by Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and Simon from Stuckinabook, a week which sees readers talking about, reviewing and of course reading books first published in 1930. There are two club weeks each year – and it’s always interesting to see what everyone reads.

My first read for the 1930 club was The Shutter of Snow, which I have had tbr for ages – and which I am fairly sure I have read before, many years ago. I had little memory of it, and now I have read it again, I can see why that would be. The Shutter of Snow is a beautifully rendered novel, but it is light on anything approaching a plot which I might have recalled – instead the reader is left with a feeling and a series of images. I enjoyed it enormously.

Emily Holmes Coleman was born in 1899, The Shutter of Snow, her only novel, is heavily autobiographical, recalling a period in the 1920s when the author was hospitalised for psychosis following the birth of her son. Two months of her life spent in what would then have been termed an ‘insane asylum’ would have been horrific, yet she turned her experiences into a beautiful, haunting piece of writing. Coleman writes in a kind of stream of consciousness style, sometimes our narrator talks about herself in the first person, though mainly in the third person. Our view of everything is through her eyes. The novel is not as grim however as might be expected, Coleman’s story is both humorous and poignant.

After the birth of her child Marthe Gail spends two months in an insane asylum. Sometimes she thinks her child must be dead – most of the time she thinks she is God, or Jesus Christ. The beginning of the novel is a deliberate confusion of images and experiences – mirroring Marthe’s confusion and distress. As the novel moves on the narration becomes a little clearer – Marthe has more of an understanding of what is going on around her and has developed relationships with the people around her. Marthe leads us through a frightening world where things don’t always make sense, she can hear voices around her and there’s a red light in the hallway at night-time.

There are recurring motifs throughout the book, death or corpses is one, snow and the cold another. The title referring to both the time of year and what is happening to Marthe’s mind.  Outside the hospital it is winter, snow is laying on the ground that Marthe sees from the window – it appears to be a focus for her, as she isn’t certain how much time has passed.  

“The window was closed and the bars went up and down on the outside. She could hear the wind sliding the snow off the roof. An avalanche of snow gathered and fell and buried the sun beneath. There were six bars to the back of her bed.”

Marthe takes us through the daily routines and the strange practices of a psychiatric hospital in the 1920s.There are the other patients, many of whom are suffering their own delusions, and then there are the nurses and doctors, who are treating her. There’s a strong feeling of being trapped, of not having any control, a feeling of frustration.

“She stared at the shining room white with sunlight. Can’t I stay here a little while? I’m sorry, said Dr Halloway, but this room is busy all the time. We had an operation for appendicitis here this morning and we’re expecting a delivery tonight.

She was wheeled back, past the man, past the billiard table, down the dark hall, past the piano and into the Day Room. Can’t I stay in the Day Room? She begged, just to look at that flower pot? I will be good, O I will be good.”

Among the various patients there is a lot of talk about the different wards of the hospital. Marthe is keen to make it upstairs, from where it is believed release is more likely. Some patients have been in the hospital for years – or so they say, and believe, we never find out if the length of their stays is part of their delusions. Upstairs there are new people to meet, a new place to sleep in. There are friendships and squabbles among the patients, Coleman portrays beautifully the odd and so temporary relationships that develop between the women in the hospital.

“There was trouble with Mrs Glope. Mrs Glope took her toothpaste, her slippers and her towel. Where are my things? she cried and looked and looked. She would find them with Mrs Glope. Why do you take my things? I don’t take them my dear, you left them in here. The nurses said she must watch her property. If you cannot take care of your things you should be in East Hall, they said.”

Marthe’s husband Christopher visits her, and her relief at seeing him is palpable, though sometimes she feels angry with him. He clearly supports her, while worrying a little about the future. Marthe is so proud of him, proud that he visits her. He brings her a lock of her child’s hair, the child she can’t remember yet. Eventually the talk turns to her release – and the novel ends with Marthe’s release.

The Shutter of Snow is an extraordinary portrait of a time and a place many would have wanted to walk away from and forget. There is a poetic beauty to this novel, it’s suffused with images that linger in the mind and I found that I really, really liked Marthe and the way she looked at things. For even while in the grip of a psychosis Marthe is capable of an astute understanding of those around her.

I’m now reading something quite different – still for the 1930 club, The Mysterious Mr Quinn by Agatha Christie – which I don’t think I had read before.