Ellen Prentiss Campbell

Frieda's Song Ellen Prentiss Campbell

Frieda's Song, a novel, is inspired by renowned psychiatrist Frieda Fromm-Reichmann. Fleeing Nazi Germany in 1935, she came to the Chestnut Lodge Sanatorium in Rockville, Maryland. Frieda worked there for the rest of her life, establishing the Lodge's reputation for innovative treatment of mental illness, dying in her custom-built cottage on the grounds under mysterious circumstances in 1957. Decades later, psychotherapist Eliza Kline and her teenage son Nick live in Frieda's Cottage, next door to the closed and abandoned hospital. As told by Frieda, Eliza, and Nick, the novel explores the tension between love and work, the strength and limits of relationship, and what healers must do to heal themselves. Frieda's Song is a tale of the way history and chance, and the work and people we love, shape our lives-and how the past is always present, haunting us.