I always find the etymology of the word hysteria curious. Because it comes from the womb in Greek. And so the easy and abhorrent association of the feminine with the insane by nature is easily derived. Aberrant.
Almudena Grandes is fixed in this novel in a particular female psychiatric hospital that existed in Ciempozuelos since 1877. Under the auspices of this madhouse, all kinds of "deviations" and "manias" of a long period extended well into the twentieth century were welcomed. Deviations, hobbies, eccentricities along with true psychopathies and even shame to be hidden by decorous families.
Everything psychiatric was much more determinable and even punishable in the case of women, of course. Because the standards of morality then established, with the greatest of certainties, where was reason and where was madness.
Germán Velázquez arrived in this asylum in 1954, with his band as a psychiatrist trained abroad. Although undoubtedly due to this training in much more academic spaces, Germán discovers the most squeaky methods and guidelines of a place destined more for the expiation of sins than for mental treatment.
Between Germán and María, one of the center's assistants, a relationship is established that transcends the merely professional from the union of Doña Aurora, an intern who ended the life of her father and of whom it is not known whether her Paranoia came before or after his crime, whether it was the cause of his criminal behavior or a consequence of the reality of the crime.
The point is that from Dona Aurora, Germán and María delve into the idea of guilt, of morality committed to writing destinies in blood. María and Germán have symmetrical pasts in their notion of loss, abandonment, departure, escape and urgency to forget stolen time.
In the interaction of both, sought by a German deceived by the secrets of life and the enigmas of the mind, he is realizing a gray time in which all souls had to be dyed in that dull tone. Because showing life, especially for women, could find his bones in the madhouse.
You can now buy the novel Frankstein's mother, the book of Almudena Grandes, here: