Reviews

Named the 2023 Best Memoir on Health/Adverse Childhood Experiences by Memoir Magazine

Reviews:

"The Preventorium presents a forgotten and unique aspect of Mississippi’s and the nation’s history: the institutionalization and caring for children in response to a plague. It is a vivid, compelling account of an extremely challenging and formative experience. Susan Annah Currie’s own erudition and careful self-examination of memory and of history form a narrative that is remarkable in its precision and depth." - Leslie Daniels, author of Cleaning Nabokov’s House

"Susan Annah Currie’s memoir provides an intimate view of the preventorium and its aftereffects that last a lifetime. It’s a fascinating history and personal story, riveting in its depictions of surviving such an alienating experience. Utterly powerful and moving." - Helena María Viramontes, author of Their Dogs Came with Them

"I’ve never read a memoir that compares to The Preventorium in terms of subject. After reading Currie’s book, I’m convinced of the urgency of remembering this period and the hard work her memoir does towards that goal."

- Melissa Oliveira, Hippocampus "For readers that enjoy reading first-person narrative novels and are interested in learning about the history of Mississippi, The Preventorium provides the same experience in a nonfiction version. Currie does a fantastic job of providing details that allow the reader to picture the events during her stay at the preventorium. . .Currie’s memoir is ideal for public and academic libraries that look to expand their history, memoir, or Mississippi-focused collections." - Justin Easterday, Mississippi Libraries