Shutter of Snow

by Emily Holmes Coleman, Joanna Biggs (Introduction)

Overview

A tragic, visceral portrayal of motherhood and mental illness.

In a prose form as startling as its content, The Shutter of Snow portrays the postpartum fever dream of Marthe Gail, who after giving birth to her son, is committed to an insane asylum. Believing herself to be God, she maneuvers through an institutional world that is both sad and terrifying, echoing the worlds of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Bell Jar.

Based upon the author's own experience after the birth of her son in 1924, The Shutter of Snow retains all the energy it had when first published in 1930.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781628976069
Publisher:	Deep Vellum Publishing
Publication date:	05/27/2025
Series:	Dalkey Archive Essentials
Pages:	168
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Emily Holmes Coleman was an American-born poet, novelist and diarist of the 20th century who lived much of her life in France and England. In 1930 she wrote one semi-autobiographical novel, The Shutter of Snow, which was the story of a woman incarcerated in a mental hospital.

Joanna Biggs is the author of A Life of One's Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again. Born in London, she lives in New York and New Haven, and works as the deputy editor of The Yale Review.

Read an Excerpt

There were two voices that were louder than the others. At night when the red light was out in the hall and there was some­one sitting in a chair in front of the door clearing her throat at intervals there would be the voices far down the hall mingling with sobs and shouts and the drones of those who were begin­ning to sleep. It was cold and she shivered under the blankets. She cried out that she was cold and the woman came in and took a blanket out and warmed it for her. Then she would be wrapped in the hot blanket very tightly and the covers tucked in over that. My feet are cold. Her throat was always hot, like old bread in the sun. Her lips stood out and were cracked and there was water gushing on the other side of the wall. There was chicken wire up over her door.

Editorial Reviews

An extraordinary, visionary book, written out of those edges where madness and poetry meet.”—Fay Weldon

From the Publisher