"Seven people die in deep sleep therapy. A woman dies from a bee-sting in the grounds of a psychiatric clinic where inmates are encouraged to live out their delusions.

The doctor rapes his patients in the Sleeping Beauty ward.

The Dr thinks he's an elephant, and that raping a woman will fix all her psychological problems because most of the problems women have are because of a fear of sex...and him raping them will solve this fear.

Weird book. ( )

Intriguing exploration of language and stream of conciousness through the women being treated at a psychiatric hospital in Australia in the 1960s. The story opens with a woman who is not a patient at the hospital but who dies from bee stings in the hospital's White Garden, designed as an imitation of Vita Sackville-West's garden in England. The story shifts between the current mental landscape of several of the patients and figures from the past on whom the patients have become fixated. Themes in novel also include an exploration of the skewed male view of mental illness and sexuality in women and also parent-child, husband-wife, and sibling relationships. ( )