Out of the Night that Covers Me: A Family Memoir

A mother's violent death. A daughter's search for answers in small town America.

Left an orphan at six years old in 1976, Kandace DeLain Davis grew up in Crossville, Illinois, at her grandparents' kitschy roadside motor lodge. Seven years earlier, at the Anna State Hospital, Davis's mother, Mary Ellen Stein, had met her father at what was once known as The Illinois Southern Hospital for the Insane, after suffering from mental illness and addiction most of her adult life. When Mary Ellen was found dead in 1976 with a knife protruding from her chest, her family believed it must be suicide. Fast forward to 2015 when Davis discovered a tiny article from her local small town newspaper, dated not long after her mother's death, and Davis feared she may not have the full story. This newspaper clipping took her on a four-year journey, navigating through court documents and records of her mother's over one hundred hospitalizations, searching for the truth of her mother's death. Was this a case of die by suicide, or was she murdered?

In Out of the Night that Covers Me, Davis narrates her family's history and details her investigation into the years, months, weeks, and days leading to her mother's death. Not only does Davis reveal stories of her mother's life, but she also lovingly shares anecdotes from the life of her grandmother, Faire DeLain Stein. Faire was a woman who made boundless sacrifices to protect the innocent victims of her husband Alvin's tyrannical behavior and Mary Ellen's mental illness. Davis includes letters, diary entries, photos, court transcripts, and re-enactments, and these cherished heirlooms tell a heartbreaking but triumphant story. The author interweaves her present day quest for answers with the pivotal events of her family's early years and her youth in small town America.

This multi-generational family drama examines the decades-long domino effect of unhealthy choices of previous generations and the inherited heartache. However, surprising to readers, they will feel the enduring love of these three generations and realize how much we still have left to learn about mental illness. While Davis searches through her family's history, we take a front row seat to Midwest life from the Roaring Twenties through the sixties and seventies.

The Stein family story speaks to the global issues of rising suicide rates, struggles to overcome addiction, and the continued poor treatment of mentally ill individuals. As a contrast, on Davis's path of discovery, themes of friendship, love, and survival shine through as her loved ones and much of her family support her search. But most of all, the author's investigation of her family's tragedy in southern Illinois leads readers to a surprise ending where Davis learns that actually... the truth can set us free.