Samantha Greene Woodruff is the author of the historical novel The Lobotomist's Wife. She was the senior vice president of strategy and business development at MTV Networks, and she lives in Connecticut.
Q:
You’ve said that you based your character Dr. Robert Apter on Dr. Walter
Freeman II. What initially intrigued you about him, and what did you see as the
right blend between history and fiction as you wrote the novel?
A:
When I conceived of this story, I was a housewife in the suburbs living the
supposed American Dream; I had given up my corporate job and was floundering.
And I thought I was supposed to be happy. I was taking a writing class for fun
and working on a contemporary novel loosely based on my malaise.
That
was when I happened to learn about Freeman and lobotomy. I was listening to a
nonfiction book, Get Well Soon: History’s Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who
Fought Them, by Jennifer Wright, and she included a chapter about lobotomy. In
it, she tells an anecdote about Freeman going to the motel room of a reluctant
court-ordered lobotomy patient and deciding to perform the procedure on the
spot.
I
had that horrified/fascinated feeling that I think true crime often gives you –
this man was one beat shy of a serial killer. And this was happening in the middle
of the 20th century! I needed to learn more. Was he just an evil maniacal
doctor? Why did medicine embrace him?
From
those questions, I had the “what if?” thought that became the seed of the
novel: What if you were an unhappy
suburban housewife in that small moment in history when lobotomy was a reasonable
“cure?” What if Freeman was your doctor?
My
approach to writing historical fiction is to think of it like weaving a braid
between fiction and fact. For this book, I wanted the timeline and medical
specifics of the development of lobotomy to be as historically accurate as
possible. That was my anchor.
That
said, I didn’t want this to be a biographical fiction about Freeman, so I
changed things like the city where the story took place, the hospitals, and the
details about the players. For instance, Edward is nothing like James Watts
(the actual neurosurgeon who worked with Freeman), other than that they work
together.
Wherever
possible, I took real moments and anecdotes and wove them into the fictional
narrative. Especially when it was something so outrageous like stopping
mid-procedure to take pictures of patients or performing lobotomies with two
hands at once. But, the relationships, the characters, the places where they
live, the hospital, Magnolia Bluff, that is all made up.
Q:
Your character Ruth Emeraldine Apter, the lobotomist's wife of the title, is fictional.
How did you create her?
A:
Freeman’s actual wife was essentially a footnote in most of my research. Their
marriage wasn’t good. They tragically lost a child. She was an alcoholic. He
was a philanderer. That wasn’t what I pictured for my story.
I
wanted to make sense of how a woman could be married to a man who was doing
such horrific things to women. Who could help the reader understand the evolution
of lobotomy from miracle to nightmare.
In
the beginning, lobotomy really was viewed as the “best worst cure” – this was
the 1930s and conditions in mental hospitals (especially state-run ones) were
dismal. If you were a violent psychotic, you were basically sentenced to a life
of being chained up like an animal (if you were lucky.)
In
this context, a procedure that rendered you docile and happy – possibly even
able to go home to your family – was its own kind of miracle. I wanted the
reader to understand that. To see the development of what turned out to be such
a monstrous treatment from its origins, when it truly felt like it might offer
hope.
Ruth
provides that lens. She is an independent woman, with power and agency in a
time when women didn’t. She didn’t need Robert, she believed in him. She was as
invested in finding a “cure” for mental illness as he was, and she started off
as a true partner to him.
But
she is also the conscience of the novel. Whereas Robert’s approach to mental
health treatment is clinical at best, egomaniacal at worst, Ruth’s motives are
always from her heart, with compassion. That is the poignancy of the story, I
think. The contrast between her evolution and Robert’s, and the way it plays
out is, essentially the heart of the story.
Q:
How did you research the novel, and what did you learn that especially
fascinated you?
A:
Pretty much all of my research was reading. Since the novel spans two decades
and multiple topics, I just kept reading until I felt that I knew enough to
accurately tell the story.
I
read books, articles, academic papers, parts of medical journals…the list goes
on – and the topics ranged: Freeman and lobotomy, postpartum depression, the
history of mental hospitals and treatments, New York in the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s,
the postwar suburban boom…
I
found some amazing things online too. For example, when Ruth and Robert go to
the International Neurological Congress in London in 1935, I had found the
official pamphlet for US attendees, so the ship they took and the hotel they
stayed at were real.
Another
way I like to research is to watch movies from and depicting the eras I’m
writing about. This helps ground me in time and place, to see how people spoke,
dressed, interacted; how women were portrayed. Plus, it’s fun to watch a movie
and call it “research.”
I
learned so much in my research it is hard to isolate one specific thing. One
amazing factoid is that people may have suspected a connection between the
physical brain and emotional behavior as far back as the Stone Age.
Archeological findings from the prehistoric era indicate early healers used
craniotomy as a treatment for the ill.
By
the Renaissance, “trephination” (drilling into the skull) was a well enough
recognized practice for painter Hieronymus Bosch to make it the subject of his
1494 painting “Cutting the Stone” (alternately called “The Extraction of the
Stone of Madness”), which shows a man in the middle of a field while his head
is being drilled.
The
first modern experimentation with what would come to be called “psychosurgery,”
was done in the late 1800s by Swiss psychiatrist Gottlieb Burckhardt, who cut
portions of the frontal lobes of psychotic patients. It didn’t catch on until
nearly 50 years later.
Q:
The writer Elise Hooper said of the novel, “Both tense and informative, this is
a timely story not only of hubris and ambition, but also of empathy and the
search for truth.” What do you think of that description, and do you see
any echoes of the novel's events today?
A:
How can you not love that description?? It’s so great and succinctly captures
so much of what I was trying to accomplish with this story!
I
think part of the reality of any medical advance – good or bad -- is that we
only know as much as we can with the information we have at the time.
I
look, for instance, at the growing use of psychedelics for PTSD and depression
and I think, in some ways, it’s probably not that different from what happened
during the era of lobotomy. Right now, it seems groundbreaking, a way to rewire
past experiences in the brain to alter behavior in the present and future.
And
maybe in 10 years it will be commonplace, and we’ll wonder why people didn’t
start using these drugs therapeutically in the 1960s. Or, maybe, they will
cause some other negative neurological connections that will ultimately render
them a failure. It’s too soon to tell. And that’s a scary thing. It gets even
scarier when ego is involved.
Q:
What are you working on now?
A:
I’m in the middle of writing my second novel (hopefully out in the world in the
fall of 2024). It’s another historical fiction but a complete departure from
the topic of the first. It takes place in the 1920s and is the story of a twin
brother and sister, poor children of Jewish immigrants, and their journey on
the rollercoaster of the stock market in the era. It is really a book about a
strong woman, family bonds, the complex morality of wealth and the multifaceted
meaning of success. Vague enough?
Q:
Anything else we should know?
A:
Beyond writing, I love to read, hike, practice yoga, play games and watch
movies with my kids (when they are willing), snuggle with my dogs, and drink
wine or tequila with my husband and my friends.
I
used to work in television, and I am a huge TV fan, especially bad reality,
sappy romances, soapy teen dramas and thrillers (but not horror!) I really like
to cook – my specialty is NOT following a recipe -- and I love love love to
sing. I was in musicals, rock bands and even a gospel choir in college (I am
Jewish, it was comical), so now I torture anyone I can with karaoke in my
basement.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb