Confessions of Madame Psyche

the long version

Mei-li Murrow, the illegitimate daughter of a Chinese prostitute and a white confidence man, is recreated as the medium "Madame Psyche" after she accidentally predicts the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Although she wins fame and fortune as a medium, Mei-li seeks a truer spirituality, and embarks on a pilgrimage that takes her to the death-soaked Europe of the First World War, to a utopian commune in the Santa Cruz Mountains in the 1920s, to Depression-era migrant work camps and cannery strikes, and finally to the Napa State Hospital, where she finds wisdom and peace among the outcasts of the asylum.