Preview of The Silver Pillow Summary:

At the age of seventy-one, "too dilapidated to be considered an active menace to society," Mrs. Ostrowsky has been paroled into the care of her son from the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane at Northhampton.

She is a nasty person who believes that her killing of her husband was his fault. Disch uses the problems society has in warehousing and caring for the mentally ill as part of the background for his tale.

The Silver Pillow: A Tale of Witchcraft focuses on a mother and her grown child. Although their relationship is a perverse one, its exaggerated tensions reflect common psychological aspects of mother-son relationships. Mrs. Ostrowsky is domineering, constantly bossing her son around. In this, she represents the role mothers must play if a small child requires constant supervision. On the other hand, as an old and frail woman, she is really...