One more on the Modern Library list of the 100 best American works of fiction in the 20th century that I hadn't read. It is usually reviewed as the story of the first Mrs. Rochester in Jane Eyre, and that may have been some stimulus to the author, but it is not a necessary element of the story. The protagonist cracks up slowly during the course of the events depicted and in a lush tropical Caribbean background replete with racism, continental vs island social clashes, voodoo and various human short-comings. Some reviewers have complained that these things are not a cause of insanity, but it is a work of art, not a medical text - and I think there must be some autobiographical component.