Advertisement
Becoming Darlene: Belchertown Patient #4952https://www.levellerspress.com/product/becoming-darlene-belchertown-patient-4952/
also on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1965664032
Darlene, the eighth of what would be fourteen children in an impoverished family, was born in 1956 in the factory town of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Abused and neglected, she didn’t respond to her own name, and considered herself an It. At age three she was sent to live with an aunt, where the abuse continued. Darlene didn’t speak, but began to hear voices in her head. When she was seven years old, she was sent to a place called Belchertown State School.
It was here that Darlene met a sister she didn’t know she had, and here that the voices in her head helped her cope by dissociating from the chaos surrounding her. But she survived, and had visions of one day getting married and raising a family of her own. When she was discharged at age 17, she was thrown into the world with no social skills or practical training about day-to-day living.
Despite all these obstacles, Darlene persevered. She met a man who had recently returned from the Vietnam War, they married and had two sons. Darlene was determined to raise them to see that the world isn’t an awful place.
Becoming Darlene follows the publication in 2016 of You’ll Like It Here, The Story of Donald Vitkus: Belchertown Patient #3394, which became an all-time best-seller for Levellers Press of Amherst, Massachusetts. Both books are the work of Ed Orzechowski, a retired high school English teacher, radio, and print journalist.
Advertisement
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Florence Civic Center, 90 Park Street, Florence, MA, United States