Summary

In “On the Ward,” Wang writes about her three experiences being committed to mental hospitals, zeroing in on one stay in particular in a Louisiana facility. Wang had been having difficulties with hallucinations prior to visiting her husband's family in Metairie, and they got worse one evening when she was alone in their hotel room. C had gone to a football game with his father, and when Wang realized she was on the edge of a psychotic break, she called her mother-in-law and asked to be taken to the hospital.

Along with this story, Wang reflects on the work of journalist Nellie Bly, who famously snuck into a mental hospital in 1887 to write an exposé on its conditions. Bly's work was continued by another journalist, Albert Q. Maisel, who are about these hospitals in...