Mabel is only five years old. A lovely, happy, chatty child with soft curls whose mother and father love her dearly. It’s the late 1920’s. World War I has passed and World War II is not yet upon England. Mabel’s father, Edward Hamilton, a decorated war hero has been decommissioned with an honourable discharge. When he meets Eleanor, a secretary in the War Office, Edward was there to receive his discharge papers. He leaves her a note as he was leaving inviting her to tea ~ ‘strictly professional’. An idyllic life is to follow. Edward, already involved in England’s Eugenics Society, enlists Eleanor in his research. She comes to believe in it’s precepts ~ “The aim of the eugenics moment is to improve the human population by increasing reproduction of the most desirable characteristics in human beings and suppressing reproduction of the least desirable - for example, inheritable disease, mental retardation, and so forth. - Edward Hamilton.”
One of those so-called inheritable diseases was epilepsy. Louise Fein has written epilepsy as one more character in this story, making an appearance only nine times. Suddenly and for few pages. In each appearance, it tells us that only his control matters. He describes seizures both inside and outside the brain. This character tells us: “……,whatever harm I do, you do far worse.”
The novel opens with Eleanor driving their trap pulled by their pony Dilly to meet her sister Rose at the train. As they come to a stop, Mabel has her first seizure. In an attempt to deny the seriousness of that day, and the reality of her condition, it goes undiagnosed for some time. However, it grows increasingly worse. The story takes a frightening turn. To avoid exposure for Edward’s ‘good name’ in the eugenics movement, and all the research he has done, they turn to a neurologist who recommends hospitalization and ultimately institutionalization. Not uncommon at that time, there were no apparent alternatives, at least in England. Rose, Eleanor’s sister, brings news of an alternative treatment developed at the Mayo Clinic in the U.S. Edward and the neurologist treating Mabel both refuse to even read the information Eleanor has located and researched.
For Mabel, this darling five year old child, she couldn’t know that she would be trapped in the dreadful scheme of care where she was hidden. Or that both her parents had other secrets that bound them. Secrets that are revealed to change their beliefs about eugenics. She also wouldn't know that in the end she would get the care needed from a very unlikely quarter. What she did know was that her parents loved her very much.
Louise Fein has written this novel because of her own trials with her young daughter. She has carefully researched the eugenics movement and the important and historical figures who were pivotal in its formation. Other of her characters in the story both supported and sometimes excused certain behaviours. All were bound by society mores of the time.
Epilepsy has been my own unwanted guest for many, many years. As I read this important story of Mabel and her parents Eleanor and Edward Hamilton, I was in turn infuriated and finally very grateful that I, and many others, have not suffered the same indignities.
“Oh yes, you humans think yourselves above the animals,
with your clever brains and fancy morals;
but really, it’s your inhumanity that sets you apart”
~ Louise Fein, The Hidden Child
Title: The Hidden Child
Author: Louise Fein
Copyright: 2021
Publisher: P.S.™- a trademark of Harper Collins Publishers
Type: Novel
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-06-311924-6 (hardcover library edition)
ISBN: 978-0-06-309093-4 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-0-06-320543-7 (international edition)
