From hormonal shifts to pregnancies, heartbreaks, and the tragedies that shape our lives, every woman has felt, or been accused of being, a little crazy sometimes. Author and poet Robin Blackburn McBride explores women’s mental health in River of Dreams, a novel she describes as both metaphysical and historical fiction. The latter for its setting: Toronto in the early twentieth century, a time when women could be institutionalized when deemed hysterical. The former, because McBride speaks to the ghosts haunting these bouts of insanity – the lost children, the abusers, the dead parents.

McBride’s protagonist is herself a haunted young woman. Since a near-death accident in her childhood, Avery Conlon has visions; she sees figures that reveal stories of the past, present, or possible future. This is how she guesses the mystery of her own tragedy, even though no one believes her. Avery grows up to be a nurse in a “hospital for the insane.” There, her gift allows her to heal women previously discarded by society. She can do so because she believes them; their trauma hovers around them. Avery can name it and bury it.  

McBride’s novel unfurls across a series of dream-like vignettes split in small chapters that can be quickly devoured. She evokes a gothic-noir ambiance, enhanced by the supernatural side of the story. Perhaps it’s the time frame (the early 1920s), or the mention of men wearing fedoras, but I could imagine darkly lit streets framed by fog, a shadowy hospital basement, rustic country houses, and swanky downtown hotels. There’s a version of this novel that could easily swerve into horror, with scenes featuring a clairvoyant in an old, dusty theatre, or a patient burying a doll. It all feels so macabre. But what McBride opts for is something far more gentle. 

Somewhere between the tragic stories of Avery’s patients, she meets a man, a doctor named Leif who works at the same hospital. Considering what’s happening in parallel to this meet-cute, including stories of sexual abuse and self-harm, I couldn’t help but feel dread at this masculine presence, like surely something very bad would happen to this circle of mutual female understanding if a man entered it. He is the weak point of the story for me. Leif brings light and love; he is a blank slate of acceptance for Avery’s oddities. Much of their conversations revolve around her trying to push him away, emphasizing how weird she is; too weird for him, such a good man. 

The rest of the novel centres on acceptance and the love of women listening to women and giving each other the space to be a little insane, especially when the world is pushing them to the brink. I enjoyed this sweet, feminist tale,  pulled together from a darker history and carried by the author’s delicate, lovely prose. It’s romantic and hopeful, sometimes a tinge corny, but perhaps that’s a nice thing to accept in your life and this mad world once in a while. Even if it sometimes involves a man.mRb