Frieda’s Song
Ellen Prentiss Campbell’s novel Frieda’s Song is inspired by the renowned psychiatrist Frieda Fromm-Reichmann. Fleeing Nazi Germany in 1935, Frieda came to the Chestnut Lodge Sanatorium in Rockville, Maryland. She established the Lodge’s reputation for innovative treatment of mental illness, dying in her custom-built cottage on the grounds under mysterious circumstances in 1957. The story is told by Frieda, and decades later, by psychotherapist Eliza Kline and her teenage son Nick. Mother and son live in Frieda’s Cottage, next door to the closed and abandoned hospital. Eliza feels Frieda’s lingering influence. Frieda’s Song is a tale of the way history and chance, work and people we love, shape our lives—and how the past is always present, haunting us.
Ellen, a psychotherapist, lived near the Lodge. She began this novel after a fire destroyed the vacant hospital under mysterious circumstances that remain unexplained. Frieda’s cottage next door was unscathed. Ellen had the honor of testifying before the National Historic Landmarks Commission in support of the successful effort to designate Frieda’s Cottage a Landmark.
Frieda’s Song was selected as a Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist, Historical Fiction. This is the largest international awards program for indie authors and independent publishers.
Published by Apprentice House Press, 2021.
Praise
“The book is a small miracle.”
– Jack El-Hai, author of The Nazi and the Psychiatrist
“Campbell deftly weaves a fabric of history and chance from the lives of two very different women both dedicated, heart and mind, to the life-affirming profession of healing.”
– Valerie Martin, author of Mary Reilly
“Like the best therapy, Frieda’s Song pushes headlong into unraveling the mysteries of the human heart.”
– Steven Schwartz, author of A Good Doctor’s Son
“This beautiful novel glows with wisdom and warmth as Campbell shows us how our common humanity links the mentally ill and the healthy, the dead and the living, and the loved and the lost.”
– Carrie Callaghan, author of Salt the Snow
“Campbell, a trained psychotherapist, is also a deft ventriloquist. She breathes distinct life into each of the…points of view, gracing Frieda with a formality and severity that feel true to a woman who escaped genocide and became a pioneer in her field at a time when women psychiatrists were scarce.”
“An ode to the healing power of love and psychotherapy.…People who are curious about the process of psychological exploration will find this novel fascinating reading.”
– Tiferet Journal
Behind the Scenes
Politics and Prose (Washington, DC), Sunday, September 12, 2021
Ellen in conversation with author Carrie Callaghan.
