The Lost Girls of Willowbrook

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-10

Chapters 11-16

Chapters 17-21

Chapters 22-29

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Themes

Deceptive Appearances

In The Lost Girls of Willowbrook, the mystery plot hinges on mistaken identity, the difference between surface impressions and reality, and the willful manipulation of persona and image. Sage’s identical twinship results in her captivity in Willowbrook. Externally, Willowbrook presents as a peaceful place of safety for patients, while in reality they are profoundly mistreated and abused. Finally, Eddie acts as a friendly and genuinely concerned member of Willowbrook staff, but is revealed to be an unrepentant serial killer. In all three examples, people in positions of authority take shortcuts to present the image they’d rather not work hard to actually achieve.

Willowbrook authorities feel certain that Sage is actually her identical twin sister Rosemary, a patient who has recently gone missing. This case of mistaken identity is compounded by Rosemary’s propensity for occasionally claiming to be Sage, and by the fact that the twins’ parents did not inform Willowbrook that Rosemary had a sibling. Sage searches for ways to prove that she is not her sister, but Willowbrook workers refuse to believe that there is anything to her inner life beneath her exterior. Moreover, misidentifying Sage as Rosemary absolves the institution of having to figure out what actually happened to their missing patient. Only the discovery of Rosemary’s body finally convinces the staff to see that Sage is telling the truth—and even then, Baldwin denies Sage autonomy until Nolan insists on her release.

When Sage first arrives at Willowbrook, she has a moment of hope when she surveys its exterior. There are cheerfully painted playgrounds, peaceful grounds, and the buildings appear well-kept and grand. This appearance is used to deceive the families of the residents that the facility must match on the inside—that it is clean and therapeutic. However, when Sage is moved into the wards, she experiences the hidden reality: overwhelming and appalling neglect and abuse, which the novel draws from real testimony about Willowbrook conditions. Residents are left in their own filth, only bathed once a week, kept sedated for days on end, given no education or rehabilitation, and used for medical experimentation. Moreover, predatory staff members like Wayne physically and sexually assault those in their charge.

Drawing on the manipulative lies at the heart of the institution that has effectively raised him, Eddie presents himself to Sage as a caring, if rather powerless, janitor who tried to take care of Rosemary. He behaves as if he believes Sage should not be confined in Willowbrook—something he knows for a fact, as Rosemary’s killer. But Eddie’s clean-cut and reasonable appearance, as well as his claims of trying to make the world better, are a well-crafted persona meant to conceal his true identity: a serial killer who justifies his violence by portraying himself as Willowbrook’s savior.

The Lost Girls of Willowbrook argues that deception at the hands of the powerful leads to death, imprisonment, and extended abuse. The implication is that only other powerful figures, like Nolan, can look below the surface—a dangerous action that is necessary to protect others from harm.

The Dual Nature of Imagination

The Lost Girls of Willowbrook revolves around Sage’s anticipation of the future, which colors her choices and interpretation of events. On the way to Willowbrook and throughout the two weeks she’s imprisoned there, she turns to her imagination for hope and comfort. While at Willowbrook and after she’s released, her trauma makes her hyperaware of possible dangers, so she foresees disaster. However, aware of her imagination’s tendency to obscure truth, Sage regularly discounts her intuition—both to her benefit and detriment.

When Sage takes the bus to Willowbrook, she alternates between believing Rosemary has been in a living hell, is actually dead, or has been helped by a supportive school environment. Sage’s relief on seeing the Willowbrook grounds seems to indicate that her hopeful vision of a caring institution is correct. She dismisses her imagined fears as hyperbolic and foolish—a decision that proves gravely harmful, as it makes Sage ignore warning flags such as the dreary, prison-like intake area and the loud complaints of a Willowbrook resident’s family. In this case, Sage’s imagination betrays her into believing the carefully crafted lie Willowbrook displays.

During Sage’s captivity in Willowbrook, she copes with the day-to-day horror of the conditions there largely through escaping into her imagination and memory. Reliving happier times with her friends and Rosemary, Sage manages her fears that she will be trapped at Willowbrook forever or that Cropsey is prowling the halls, looking for victims. Again, her imagination proves a double-edged sword. Without its ability to calm and sooth, Sage would have given in to the institutional trauma. However, by dismissing her paranoia as irrational, she also ignores her gut feeling that there is something slightly off about Eddie, who is indeed prowling the halls looking for victims in his guise as Cropsey. Her intuition is correct, though her imagination creates unrealistic scenarios causing her to ignore her gut.

After Sage’s release, she has a post-traumatic response to the world around her: hypervigilance. She sees the sexual predator Wayne everywhere she looks, assuming that the dangerous rapist must also be her sister’s killer. This fixation on Wayne again distracts Sage from the more insidiously evil Eddie: Imagining him as a good person makes her gloss over her inner warnings that his behavior is creepy and threatening.

Imagination allows Sage to escape from the awful conditions in Willowbrook by providing hope. Imagination also creates scenarios based on her accurate intuition of danger. However, her tendency to ignore these mental warnings puts her into dangerous situations with untrustworthy characters. In the novel, imagination has the power of the mind to protect from psychological damage; its sometimes farfetched scenarios are ignored at one’s peril.

The Danger of Secrets

Secrets catalyze the novel’s plot. Sage’s mother hides the fact that Rosemary is alive from Sage, and she hides Sage’s existence from the staff at Willowbrook. These dual secrets result in Sage’s accidental commitment to Willowbrook, which places her in myriad dangers. Meanwhile, the secrets kept by the leadership of Willowbrook—the systemic abuse and neglect of its residents, experimental and nonconsensual medical procedures—create institutional dysfunction so deep that it allows Eddie’s crimes to go undiscovered. The creation and protection of secrets is depicted as the foremost danger to the vulnerable in the novel.

Rosemary and Sage’s mother’s secrets about Rosemary create danger for both girls in different ways. By telling Sage that Rosemary died and concealing Rosemary’s institutionalization in Willowbrook, their mother prevents Sage from potentially seeing Rosemary’s abuse and rescuing her (not to mention the emotional trauma of forcing her daughters to live through sibling death). Keeping Sage’s existence a secret from Willowbrook staff makes Rosemary’s depictions of her twin sister seem like delusions, and also puts Sage in danger by subjecting her to the same abuse and neglect her sister experienced. Their mother’s desire to avoid the stigma of mental illness by lying and obfuscation leads to Rosemary’s death and Sage’s imprisonment.

The institutional practice of keeping secrets about the conditions of Willowbrook creates an atmosphere that allows danger, protects the guilty, and makes shortcut assumptions about patients preferable to the truth. Willowbrook staff and authorities keep one another’s secrets from supervisors and from the outside world. When Sage tries to tell Dr. Baldwin and Nurse Vic about Wayne’s sexual mistreatment of residents, they ignore her warnings. When residents die at Willowbrook, doctors cover up the truth that could reveal the mismanagement and criminal neglect taking place; whistleblowers like Dr. Wilkins are fired and ignored. The resulting secret-filled institution becomes the perfect hunting ground for Eddie, who can kill as he pleases because the management of Willowbrook will cover up suspicious deaths.

As each secret is discovered and shared, the danger to its most vulnerable subject decreases. When Rosemary’s body is discovered, Sage is finally believed and released. When the abuses at Willowbrook begin to be exposed, calling more attention to the facility finally brings about changes to the way it operates. When Eddie is exposed as a murderer, Sage is able to find her father and safety.