Imagine being locked up in a mental institution for 60 years. Forgotten by your family. No visitors, no connection to the outside world. This was the life of Esme Lennox.
Iris Lockhart is Esme's great niece. She is contacted when Esme, now deemed harmless, is released by the institution. But is she harmless?
Throughout the book, the author takes the reader back in time, revisiting Esme's past through flashbacks and first person accounts through the eyes of Esme and her sister Kitty.
The flashbacks and change and narration is distracting at first, but it does aid in the telling of the story.
The author, Maggie O'Farrell, states that two of the books that influenced her life and her career were Jane Eyre and The Yellow Wallpaper, two works that revolve around a woman's spiral into mental illness. It is evident in reading The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox how influental these works were.