Confinement (Book #1 in the Love and Madness series)

Set in an experimental hospital for the criminally insane in the 1950s, CONFINEMENT is loosely based on the author's one year residency in a psychiatric center, when lobotomies and other equally cruel treatments were rampant, and when the highly-experimental “Insulin Therapy" was in vogue.



Duffino, an attractive girl in her early 20s, is sent to a mental hospital when she refuses to defend herself at trial for the highly publicized, gang-related murder of her boyfriend's rival. Refusing to speak, Duffino is ordered locked-up until she's willing to talk.



The richness of the story unfolds with Duffino's relationship to the other inmates, all in for violent crimes, including her obese roommate, Charlotte, sentenced for murdering a nun. Charlotte becomes obsessed with Duffino, and will not let up until she speaks.The inmates slowly come to learn why they did the crimes they did, as they make us question the true nature of guilt.



Between the horrifying treatments, the group therapy sessions, the flashbacks to violent crimes, the question of whether Duffino will talk, and the constant hope of escape, CONFINEMENT is a page-turning psychological thriller, in the vein of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.



This is Book #1 in the Love and Madness Series. Book #2--LOCKED AWAY--is also available.



Dr. Gabriella Murray has been in private practice for 25 years as a state-certified psychologist and psychotherapist. She has lectured at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, JFK Hospital, NY State Psychological Association, The Association for Humanistic Psychology and the Mental Health Association. She is also a successfully produced playwright, and her fiction has been widely published in national literary magazines. Her work has been translated into 14 languages.