A corrosive, violent portrait of the dehumanization suffered by patients in a state-run psychiatric institution. The description is frank and without pathos, sometimes objectifying people in archetypal terms to emphasize the violent sensation of the limits of a remnant of humanity between the institution, the nursing staff and the patients. The portrait of loneliness is multiplied by the series of forsaken characters, and continues from one story to the next. Corine, Holly, Leora, Roberta, etc… behind the descriptive ‘I’, numerous fictional names seem to evoke the author’s own biographical experience