1950s and 1960s scandal
A01=Elizabeth Nickson
Author_Elizabeth Nickson
brain washing brainwashing
Category=FBA
Category=FHD
CIA programmes programs
courtroom injustice lies
electro shock shocking
electroshock therapy
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_nobargain
eq_thrillers
guinea pigs ordinary citizens
illegal crimes against normal people
mind control experiments
psychic driving
Product details
- ISBN 9780747520382
- Weight: 323g
- Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 22 Jun 1995
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
The shocking events that unfold in Elizabeth Nickson's novel spring from shocking facts.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the CIA ran a series of programmes in mind control, using ordinary American and Canadian citizens as guinea pigs. These people did not give their consent: indeed, they were kept in complete ignorance of the nature of the experiments which incessantly exposed them to high levels of mind-altering drugs such as LSD, combined with astonishingly high levels of electroshock and invasive assaults on memory and behaviour known as 'psychic driving'.
In the name of research into brainwashing, the CIA cruelly misused people who had minor – often temporary – psychiatric complaints, such as post-natal depression, as was the case with the author's own mother.
Nickson tells the story from the perspective of a family caught in this web of treachery, and as a novel, in order to employ the revealing devices and textures of fiction and to show an extraordinary story in the round. She takes us from a Washington courtroom back to bitter-sweet scenes from a Canadian childhood which held frightening secrets at its very heart. She shows a girl, adoring and protective of a mother, whose erratic behaviour puzzled and increasingly alienated her.
The Monkey-Puzzle Tree not only sets this shameful record straight with precision and unforgettable poignancy, but introduces a writer of outstanding gifts.
