Description:
Late 1970s, Michigan.
When newspaper reporter Jake Stone meets Charlie Clarke, he expects another routine story. Instead, he encounters a mystery: Charlie, a recently released patient from the Traverse City State Hospital, has been pleading to be readmitted.
Why would anyone choose to return to a mental institution?
As Jake investigates Charlie's past, he uncovers a troubling chapter in Michigan's history. In the years preceding the closure of state mental hospitals, thousands of patients were sent back to "home communities" they had not lived in for decades-often without family, support, or resources.
Through Charlie's story, Jake confronts a haunting question: What became of the patients who had been released?
Brief description: Richard VanDeWeghe is Professor Emeritus of English from the University of Colorado, Denver. He has published numerous articles and three books-Engaged Learning (2009), a theory of instruction and practical guide for learning across the curriculum; Jimmy Quinn (2018) and Lucy Greene (2020) historical fiction that are Books One and Two of the Traverse City State Hospital Series. Charlie Clarke is the third and final book in the series. Each bookseeks to capture the struggles of the State Hospital, its staff and its patients in a particular era: Jimmy Quinn takes place in the early '50s, when the Hospital was forced to eliminate its farm and livestock programs and prohibited patients from working on the farm and in the stables; Lucy Greene takes place during the '60s influxof big pharma that lavished broad promises that their medications would heal mental illness; Charlie Clarke is set in the late '70s, at a time when the hospital was forced to close and its patients were released to their "homes of origin." Richard lives in Traverse City, Michigan.
Review Quotes:
"VanDeWeghe's characters immediately draw in the reader. Through their stories, VanDeWeghe skillfully
illuminates the social and political issues regarding deinstitutionalization of the so-called 'mentally ill, ' and
shows how we have failed them."
-Dennis Chapman, former instructor, health law and ethics
"Charlie Clarke draws on stories of many people, all of whom have a vantage point to reflect on the Traverse
City State Hospital in the 1970s as it faced its final closing. Seen through the eyes of well-drawn characters, VanDeWeghe uses the vehicle of an aspiring reporter to enlighten the reader about the ways in which mental health is viewed. The stories put a face on the impacts of policy decisions."
-Kathleen Anderson Steeves, historian; board member, Friends of the Historic Commons