Girl, Interrupted

This is the Vermeer painting from which Kaysen took the name for her book. The painting is "Girl Interrupted at Her Music."

Kaysen writes:

It's the painting from whose frame a girl looks out, ignoring her beefy music teacher, whose proprietary hand rests on her chair. The light is muted, winter light, but her face is bright. I looked into her brown eyes and I recoiled. She was warning me of something--she had looked up from her work to warn me. Her mouth was slightly open, as if she had just drawn a breath in order to say to me, "Don't."

I love Kaysen's crisp, clear writing. Read her explanation of what it is like to believe in unreality:

Think of being in a train, next to another train, in a station. When the other train starts moving, you are convinced that your train is moving. The rattle of the other train feels like the rattle of your train, and you see your train leaving that other train behind. It can take a while--maybe even half a minute--before [you sort through it]. That's because it's hard to counteract the validity of the sensory impressions. We are designed to believe in them. Sometimes, when you've realized that your train is not really moving, you can spend another half a minute suspended between two realms of consciousness: the one that knows you aren't moving and the one that feels you are. You can flit back and forth between these perceptions and experience a sort of mental vertigo. And if you do this, you are treading on the ground of craziness--a place where false impressions have all the hallmarks of reality.