The pink institution : a novel / by Selah Saterstrom
- 1st ed.
- Minneapolis Saint Paul : Coffee House Press ; : Consortium Book Sales & Distribution , 2004.
- 134 p. : ill. ; 19 cm.
- San Miguel de Allende (Mexico)--Author .
Located in Gloria Grant Room - special collection of San Miguel de Allende authors.
Saterstrom's remarkably daring debut is not so much a novel as a catalog of events that eventually gives shape to four generations of Mississippi women in the post-Confederate South. In Part 1, we meet Abella, who marries Micajah, an abusive alcoholic. Their emotionally scarred daughter, Azalea, grows up to marry a drinker and has four children of her own Faryn, Aza, Trulie, and Ginger whose horrifying childhoods are recounted in Part 2. Of them, Aza's daughter, Penelope, dominates, relating the pain of her mother's substance abuse and suicide attempts as well as her own vexatious childhood. Imbued with madness, violence, and strong familial connections, Saterstrom's characters recall those of almost any Southern novel following Faulkner; the family's slide into alcoholism, poverty, and despair embodies the overall decay of the region. However, Saterstrom takes a fresh approach to the South's most beloved genre, framing the action with historical black-and-white photos and employing quotes from The Confederate Ball Program Guide (circa 1938) and other unidentified sources. More tellingly, she moves the plot forward through terse, aphoristic paragraphs sometimes just one to a page that give her novel the feel of a fable.