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Synopsis The Benningdon-Crank Nervous Hospital by Rachel Corday The Benningdon-Crank Nervous Hospital is a novel about a bipolar woman named Thuna Paxton who, as someone with a brain chemistry disorder, is spending inpatient time at the Benningdon Psychiatric Institute where she discovers the untimely deaths of a number of fellow patients. In her compromised position as a mental patient she is limited in her capacity to be heard either by the hospital or the police. But she has an advantage in that she has a friend in fellow inmate and bipolar patient Marin Chadwick. It is rare for a mental patient to make a connection with another patient and it is because of their combined strength that they are able to persevere in their attempts to survive a killer who is focused on getting rid of them both. Thuna is a Social Work Supervisor for Multnonmah County in Portland, Oregon where the Institute is located, and where she lives with her husband Nate, an art history professor at the University of Portland, and her son, Travis, who leaves for Stanford in the fall. Nate and Travis are equally supportive of Thuna, and stand by her throughout her search as she confronts the policies of the hospital and the appalling practices and attitudes of the staff toward patients. While Thuna struggles in her effort to survive as she seeks the killer, other patients are not so enduring. Thuna’s friend Graham, who, because Thuna has befriended him, and who fought to help Thuna survive a night in the infamous Room 2, is, in the end, brutally murdered in his bed. A mental hospital is a dangerous place, but it is not so much for the staff, which is the common misconception, but rather for the patients who must endure an astonishing degree of ignorance and prejudice against them.  Patients must attempt to survive hospital abuse until they are either freed to an almost equally dangerous outside world, or until their life comes to an end in the institution.  During Thuna’s incarceration she reveals the depth of these conditions and fights moment by moment to survive them all.. Even for a mental hospital, and an awarded one at that, Benningdon Psychiatric Institute is more than it seems, and the exact nature of its horrific secret is uncovered by Thuna’s relentless efforts to save her own life as well as those of others who have already lived lives of unendurable suffering.