The Fading of Kimberly by Kit Crumpton (Details)
Book Title: The Fading of Kimberly
Book Author: Kit Crumpton
Date Published: September 30, 2018
Number Of Pages: 276
My Rating: ★★★★
The Fading of Kimberly (Summary)
Kimberly Witherspoon
In The Fading of Kimberly, a soul’s life begins before birth and Kimberly is asked to choose the life she wants. She chooses to be the center of attention as the beautiful daughter of a wealthy man in the 1900s. Her mother dies during childbirth, leaving her with a father who doesn’t know the first thing about raising a daughter. His solution is to throw money at problems and to bury any emotion down deep. When Kimberly finds her fiance cheating on her, she murders him and his lover. Her cold, unemotional trial results in her being placed in a mental asylum.
Riley Nacht
An astronomer at a popular watch company, Riley Nacht is asked to teach astronomy to a class of young girls at Kimberly’s private school. A man who believes that the Gods and Stars above want him to commit unspeakable acts, he doesn’t notice Kimberly witness his murder of a young girl. Riley is placed in the same mental asylum as Kimberly.
Eddie Fisk
Young Eddie Fisk is trying to build a better life for himself and gets a job as an assistant at the mental asylum. He’s quickly put in charge of studying Riley Nacht and we see the young man begin to be influenced by stories of mythology, astrology, and astronomy.
Mental Asylum
It’s a known fact that the treatment of patients during the early 1900s sounds horrific to us these days. In The Fading of Kimberly, we get a closer look by reading about the men in charge and read about their discussions of treatments. For these doctors, these methods were all experimental. Therapy was more of a tool used to study behaviors than treat them. When therapy didn’t “work” patients were subjected to other methods such as cold baths and lobotomies. Patients were regularly abused and this often went unnoticed or was just not worth the time to try to stop. Hospitals were under-funded and overpopulated.
The Fading of Kimberly (Book Review)
This book is generally discussed in terms of its accurate portrayal of the mental institution at the beginning of the 20th century. I agree that it is a wonderful representation of that and that it should be recommended for anyone interested in that topic. Having said that, I was also deeply enthralled by the storyline of the characters.
Author Kit Crumpton did a wonderful job of providing us with detailed beginnings to each main character’s life as well as insights into their thoughts and reasonings. There are several different characters in the story, including Kimberly’s father, her fiancé, her butler, and her teacher. Each character had their own individual thoughts and interests. Kit Crumpton knows how to add depth to characters by delving into the details of these personalities.
Following along Kimberly’s life, it is easy to see the reasons why she became a narcissist. Having said that, Crumpton raises the question of nature vs nurture in terms of mental health by adding the interesting bit about Kimberly choosing this life for herself before she’s even born.
Why Not 5 Stars?
Throughout several points in the book, we read the direct thoughts of a character. This is done for most characters, not just the main ones and it took me out of the story for a moment. Also, the timeline of events was a bit jumpy and I found myself turning back a page more than once to see where the jump occurred. I didn’t love the structure of the ending either. A few issues were unclear or misplaced. I’m being picky here because I believe that these issues should have been picked up by the editor.
