Girls and Their Monsters, by Audra Clare Farley
2 stars
On May 19, 1930, Carl and Sadie Morlok were very surprised to find themselves the parents of four daughters. Marginally employed Carl was not prepared to support the new quadruplets and his wife, nor was his wife prepared to care for four infants. Who would be? But the community of Lansing, Michigan rallied around the stunned parents. Donations came in to fill their needs. A job offer came in for Carl. In exchange, the quadruplets became objects of curiosity. Visitors would barge into the Morlok apartment to look at the babies. When the girls got older, Sadie taught them to dance and sing. But, as Audrey Clare Farley reveals early in Girls and Their Monsters: The Genain Quadruplets and the Making of Madness in America, the family’s outward respectability covered abuse and mental illness. The Morlok sisters, we learn, would later become the subject of a study on schizophrenia, …
On May 19, 1930, Carl and Sadie Morlok were very surprised to find themselves the parents of four daughters. Marginally employed Carl was not prepared to support the new quadruplets and his wife, nor was his wife prepared to care for four infants. Who would be? But the community of Lansing, Michigan rallied around the stunned parents. Donations came in to fill their needs. A job offer came in for Carl. In exchange, the quadruplets became objects of curiosity. Visitors would barge into the Morlok apartment to look at the babies. When the girls got older, Sadie taught them to dance and sing. But, as Audrey Clare Farley reveals early in Girls and Their Monsters: The Genain Quadruplets and the Making of Madness in America, the family’s outward respectability covered abuse and mental illness. The Morlok sisters, we learn, would later become the subject of a study on schizophrenia, genetics, and upbringing by a group at the National Institute of Mental Health and the subsequent book, The Genain Quadruplets: A Case Study and Theoretical Analysis of Heredity and Environment in Schizophrenia...
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.