TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) - A publisher is bringing back a 1950s memoir written by a journalist who spent 45 days in a Traverse City psychiatric hospital.
Mission Point Press is donating $1 from each book sold to a local historical society to help create a permanent exhibit of artifacts from the old Traverse City State Hospital, the Traverse City Record-Eagle (https://bit.ly/2jmCqw5 ) reported.
“How Thin The Veil” was written by Jack Kerkhoff after he checked into the hospital for severe depression. Mission Point Press business manager Doug Weaver said the book was the “perfect snapshot” of the hospital at the time.
“The colorful dialogue and details he captured of what it was like to exist in the hospital was really revealing,” Weaver said. “It was the perfect snapshot of conditions of the time.”
Kerkhoff died in 1958. The hospital was eventually closed and converted into The Village at Grand Traverse Commons, a retail, housing and restaurant complex. Mission Point Press will launch a repackaged version of the book on Thursday at the former hospital.
The exhibit could be on the grounds of the former hospital itself. The Minervini Group, which has renovated the Commons since 2002, will consider a collaborative venture with the Traverse Area Historical Society, said partner Raymond Minervini II.
“We’re building preservers, but we definitely want to pull together the hospital’s history and tell that story as best we can,” Minervini said. “If people want to see it at the Commons, then we want to try and make that happen.”
___
Information from: Traverse City Record-Eagle, https://www.record-eagle.com
Please read our comment policy before commenting.