Madwoman

Treger’s middling latest (after The Dragon Lady) chronicles the early life and career of pioneering female journalist Nellie Bly. Outspoken tomboy Elizabeth Jane “Pink” Cochran is raised in rural Pennsylvania by parents who nurture her gift for storytelling. Her vivid imagination is diagnosed as hysteria by one doctor, and her father’s unexpected death leaves the family impoverished, dashing Pink’s hopes for higher education. After the family moves to Pittsburgh, Pink persuades the Pittsburgh Dispatch to hire her despite her gender and, under the Bly pen name, writes controversial exposés of slum and factory conditions. Relocating to New York City, she can’t find a paper that will hire a woman reporter until she makes an audacious proposal to Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World: she’ll feign madness and get herself committed to the mental hospital on Blackwell’s Island to investigate rumors of inhumane practices there. A deal is struck, and she soon finds the conditions are even more brutal than she imagined, leaving her wondering if she’ll leave the island with both mind and body intact. While Bly’s time at the madhouse is too well-documented (not least by Bly herself) to offer much in the way of surprise, Treger’s evocation of the reporter’s formative years is illuminating. It’s decently done, but the straightforward treatment doesn’t do enough to animate or reevaluate some rather well-known terrain. (Aug.)