All his life, Steve Luxenberg’s mother told everyone she was an only child. She would have gone to her grave with none the wiser if she hadn’t let it slip one day during a doctor’s visit that she had a sister. Her sister’s name was Annie, and she’d been “taken away” at age two. Why was she taken away? Where? Why had his mother kept this a secret? Luxenberg didn’t know, but he didn’t want to threaten his mother’s fragile health by asking. Yet the questions continued to nag him and after his mother’s death, he began to unravel the truth behind his family’s secret.
Annie’s Ghosts is part detective story, part memoir, and part historical overview of the psychiatric healthcare system in 1930’s-1950’s. Luxenberg’s research is thorough (this is where his 22 years as an editor at the Washington Post shines through) but not pedantic or boring. He learns that Annie wasn’t institutionalized at age 2 but at 21 – yet his mother managed to hide this from her children, her friends, her coworkers, and perhaps even her spouse. The book explores how she managed to pull this off, and more importantly, why.
You can check out Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret at the Indianola Public Library in the new nonfiction book section under the number 306.872 LUX.
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