Gracie & Albert is a portrait of a young couple in 1948 in rural Maine. Gracie is struggling with four months of treatment for mental illness in a public psychiatric hospital. Dealing with the guilt of having his wife involuntarily committed to this hospital, Albert is holding himself and their two young sons together on the outside. The reader is tossed back and forth between the mid-twentieth century mental health institution, primitive by today's standards, and an outside community rife with intolerance and void of support for patients' families. The story is based on the author's parents in their early twenties, the author's recollection of her mother's stories, and actual records from Augusta State Hospital.