The Mysterious Mind of Opal Whiteley: Four Unique Lives Compared

Opal Whiteley (1897-1992) remains a mysterious figure. Her life began as a brilliant young girl with a passion for geology and nature living in logging camps in Oregon, and ended as a psychiatric patient in the Napsbury Hospital in England, after forty-four years of institutionalization. How did this happen? Can the riddle of multi-synaesthete Opal Whiteley be solved through comparing her life with the lives of other famous and unusual figures which are in their own rights mysterious? The Helen Demidenko literary scandal of the 1990s in Australia, the character Amy in the classic horror film The Curse of the Cat People, the young Californian girl Jani Schofield who was turned into an international celebrity following her psychiatric institutionalization, and Val Lewton, an exploited 1940s Hollywood movie producer who refused to play the game are some of the fascinating lives examined in this short book, which includes links to recommended reading and references.