Kate Gompert on the psych ward — "Nor that jokes and sarcasm were…"
Nor that jokes and sarcasm were here usually too pregnant and fertile with clinical significance not to be taken seriously: sarcasm and jokes were often the bottle in which clinical depressives sent out their most plangent screams for someone to care and help them.
Context
The narration's method-statement for the whole interview: the depressive's humor as a message in a bottle nobody on the ward is allowed to laugh at. It's why Kate's deadpans get processed as literalism instead of heard.