Sometimes insanity is the sanest response to an unbearable reality.It's 1958 when Emilena Lamb, with no prior history of medical or mental problems, arrives at Bridgeton Psychiatric Hospital in a catatonic stupor. Sam Atkins, the psychiatrist who admits her, is baffled. Emilena's husband insists she's always been the perfect wife and that theirs is a very happy home, which interviews with friends and family seem to support.So what happened to Emilena?When she doesn't improve during her first month in the hospital, she's transferred to Summerland, a residential facility for "female hysterics" run by the sensuous and eccentric May Manley. Here, the laws which govern modern medicine do not apply, as May employs such therapies as lunar observation and birding to help her "guests re-root in the Earth." When Sam, desperate to heal Emilena, finds himself caught between May's unorthodox yet apparently effective approach to healing and the invasive, potentially...