Behind the Gates of Gomorrah

Psychiatrist Stephen Seager was no stranger to locked psych wards when he accepted a job at California's Napa State hospital, known locally as Gomorrah, but nothing could have prepared him for what he encountered when he stepped through its gates. Napa State is one of the nation's largest forensic mental hospitals, dedicated to treating the criminally insane. Unit C, where Seager was assigned, was reserved for the 'bad actors', the mass murderers, serial killers and the real-life Hannibal Lecters of the world.

Against a backdrop of surreal beauty — a campus-like setting where peacocks strolled the well-kept lawns — is a place of remarkable violence, where lone therapists lead sharing circles with psychopaths, where homemade weapons and contraband circulate freely and where patients and physicians often measure their lives according to how fast they can run.

Behind the Gates of Gomorrah affords an eye-opening look inside a facility to which few people have ever had access. Honest, reflective and at times darkly funny, Seager's gripping account of his experiences at Napa State hospital gives us an extraordinary insight into a unique and terrifying world, inhabited by figures from our nightmares.