What She Left Behind: Ellen Marie Wiseman

This novel exposed the conditions of insane asylums in the early 1900's. Clara, an affluent teenager in the 1920's gets pregnant with a boy, Bruno, her father doesn't approve of and gets toted off to the insane asylum. Geared for teen girls, the story parallels a teenager in the 1990's who is an orphan and has trouble fitting in at school. One assumes the story will expose the two narrators as blood ties, but it doesn't. We follow Clara's life at the asylum assuming she will eventually escape, Bruno comes to rescue her, but dies in the process. In the end Clara is found in assisted living and reunited with her daughter who was raised by the director of the insane asylum.