Madness

USA Today Bestseller

National Indie Bestseller

ELLE Magazine's Best (and Most Anticipated) Nonfiction Books of 2024

Entertainment Weekly’s Best Books to Read 2024

An Amazon “Best Book of the Year”

“As masterfully recounted by journalist Antonia Hylton, from 1911 to 2004 the hospital exemplified and exploited society’s anxieties around Blackness and mental illness. In a time when medical racism and the prison industrial complex continue to tear apart families, this impeccably researched accounting is a must-read.” 

“Fascinating…meticulous research.”

“A thoroughgoing, often shocking exposé of segregation in the treatment (or nontreatment) of mental illness. [A] strong contribution to the literature of both mental health care and civil rights.”

“Hylton writes a scathing exposé on the bigotry that led to the mistreatment of hundreds of Black patients and the attempts to cover it up. Her book is also a call to action to reform the systems that treat people diagnosed with mental illnesses…This well-researched title is an important chronicle of the treatment of Black Americans and their mental health during the Jim Crow era. Beyond promoting systemic change, Hylton compels readers to look within to assess how they treat and view the people around them.”

“A meticulous work of research and commitment . . . Madness is a radically complex work of historical study, etching the intersections of race, mental health, criminal justice, public health, memory, and the essential quest for human dignity.”

"Hylton spent a decade researching the history of Crownsville, a segregated mental hospital that operated in Maryland for 91 years. The result is not just a work of painstaking reporting, but a deeply human, often tragic story of an American failure to care for Black minds and bodies."

“[An] impassioned, rigorous study.”

“Madness, albeit harrowing, is a necessary book. It forces readers to reckon with the trauma that racism and exclusion have wrought on generations of black American families.”

"Madness reminds us that health inequities remain present, and political."

Amazon Editors’ Best Books Pick of 2024

"Madness is an all-too-true story, tirelessly and comprehensively reported, of the reinstatement of antebellum conditions under the guise of mental-health treatment — an asylum for so-called “feeble-minded” Blacks that was, in fact, little more than slavery by another name. Antonia Hylton’s sensitive, searching account of the people forever changed by this place — and its very clear, dreadful connection to today’s carceral state — will leave you dumbfounded.”

"Antonia Hylton expertly weaves together a moving personal narrative, in-depth reporting, and illuminating archival research to produce a book that left me breathless. Madness is a haunting and revelatory examination of the way that America's history of racism is deeply entangled in our mental health system. A profoundly important book that helps us make sense of an underexamined aspect of our country’s history."

“Madness is a necessary and unforgettable book. It is a particular story of a Jim Crow institution that devastated the lives of many suffering Black Americans, but it is also a collective story about how mental health care is a social justice issue, and a personal story about love, loss, and holding onto loved ones through the ravages of living. With powerful and vulnerable writing, alongside diligent research, Hylton has delivered an important and timely work.”

“Madness is a work of pure genius. Antonia Hylton breathtakingly joins archival persistence and keen insight to tell the story of lives lived and died at Crownsville, formerly Maryland’s Hospital for the Negro Insane. With courage and tenacity, she uncovers forgotten narratives and past crimes – and in so doing deepens our understanding of how ‘our traumas and illnesses are frequently intertwined with American history and the peculiar reality of being Black.’ This beautiful, brave, heartbreaking, and urgently important work will change the ways you think about race, sanity, and community.”

"Madness is a remarkable feat of reporting, penetrating centuries-old brick walls to reveal in vivid detail long buried truths about the racism at the heart of our nation's ongoing mental health crisis. Many books are described as urgent. This one actually is."

“Madness is a haunting history of Crownsville Hospital, a segregated asylum in Anne Arundel County, Maryland.  Sweeping in its reach, the book—with its use of oral history and a rich archive—offers an astonishing account of the complex relation of race, racism, and mental healthcare in America.  But there is something more intimate in these pages: a story about families, about the failures of our country, and about the madness that touches us all.  A powerful read!”

“Hylton’s in-depth probing investigation of Crownsville’s history answers essential questions about what happened to the Black population of mentally ill decades after Emancipation.”