Story-Portal

The novel is set in a mental hospital in England, where the 12-year-old Kit is confined as an “autistic” child, and tells of his “cure”—not through the efforts of the hospital staff, but through his acquaintance with Baxter, whom Kit meets after discovering a hole in the wall separating his group from the adult section. Baxter is confined for treatment as a result of having “molested” another 12-year-old boy. But the novel is less about their meetings than about their separate, but similar, conflicts with the medical/psychiatric establishment. The story reaches a climax with the boy spread-eagle and naked, being held by two policemen so the rubber-tipped finger of a doctor can “examine” him, while a psychiatrist and a social worker stand by as feebly reluctant witnesses. The point is hardto miss.
On another level, the novel is a metaphor of the reality in the wider world. The hospital staff argue conflicting social philosophies as they jockey for power, with the authoritarian chief nursing officer (male, of course) apparently coming out on top. The one thing they agree on is that individualism must be crushed. Kit and Baxter are in confinement, after all, because they followed their own lights. The happy ending of this story is fantastic, but it does reflect a note of hope in the face of this grim reality.