Girl, Interrupted

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Girl, Interrupted is a best-selling 1993 memoir by American author Susanna Kaysen, relating her experiences as a young woman in an American psychiatric hospital in the 1960s after being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. The memoir's title is a reference to the Johannes Vermeer painting Girl Interrupted at Her Music. Kaysen draws a parallel between the Vermeer painting and her own life by equating music interrupting the girl, with the struggles of poor mental health in adolescence interrupting healthy development, both serving as an impediment to personal evolution. Kaysen draws on the painting as a source of inspiration for critical analysis of the female teenage experience. While writing the novel Far Afield, Kaysen began to recall her almost two years at McLean Hospital. She obtained her file from the hospital with the help of a lawyer. A film adaptation of the memoir directed by James Mangold and starring Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie was released in 1999. The memoir inspired the 2021 album Queens of the Summer Hotel by the singer-songwriter Aimee Mann. A Girl, Interrupted musical, with songs by Mann, opened in New York City in 2026.