Behind the Gates of Gomorrah
Life Inside One Of America's Largest Hospitals For The Criminally Insane, Treating The Real Hannibal Lecters Of This World
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4.3 • 6 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Psychiatrist Stephen Seager was no stranger to locked psych wards when he accepted a job at California's Gorman State hospital, known locally as 'Gomorrah', but nothing could have prepared him for what he encountered when he stepped through its gates, a triple sally port behind the twenty-foot walls topped with shining coils of razor wire. Gorman State is one of the nation's largest forensic mental hospitals, dedicated to treating the criminally insane. Unit C, where Seager was assigned, was reserved for the 'bad actors', the mass murderers, serial killers, and the real-life Hannibal Lecters of the world.
Against a backdrop of surreal beauty - a campus-like setting where peacocks strolled the well-kept lawns - is a place of remarkable violence, a place where a small staff of clinicians are expected to manage a volatile population of prison-hardened ex-cons, where lone therapists lead sharing circles with psychopaths, where homemade weapons and contraband circulate freely, and where patients and physicians often measure their lives according to how fast they can run.
Behind the Gates of Gomorrah affords an eye-opening look inside a facility to which few people have ever had access. Honest, reflective, and at times darkly funny, Seager's gripping account of his experiences at Gorman State hospital give us an extraordinary insight into a unique and terrifying world, inhabited by figures from our nightmares.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When psychiatrist Seager (Street Crazy : America's Mental Health Tragedy) accepted a job at Gordon State Hospital, he was no stranger to chaos he'd already worked as an ER doctor for 11 years but nothing could prepare him for the levels of violence and discord he'd soon encounter at this California facility dedicated to serving a motley crew of psychopaths, sexual predators, vicious convicts, and the mentally ill. In this riveting account, he chronicles his year on the job, which begins with a horrific assault on his first day, slowly uncovering a twisted ecosystem in which inmates extort money from staff and patients alike, in which a vicious convict will attempt to kill a fellow patient one day, only to administer CPR to save the life of another, and Santa bellows obscenities and is dragged kicking and screaming from a Christmas party. This day-to-day tedium coupled with the ever-present threat of violence adds tension to Seager's story, but when the author attempts to tie in a critique of the state and local government's approach to dealing with mental illness, the narrative falls flat. Seager's attempt to tell so many stories his own, his patients, and the system's only dilutes his tale.
