Asylum by Nina Shope
Winner of the Dzanc Prize for Fiction
A work of brilliant and innovative historical fiction, Asylum delves into the disturbing and seductive relationship between a young hysteric named Augustine and renowned nineteenth-century French neurologist J.M. Charcot. As Charcot risks his career to investigate the controversial disease of hysteria, Augustine struggles to make him acknowledge their interdependence and shared desires—until a new lover, M., drives them all to the brink of fracture.
Drawing upon the medical photography, hypnotic states, and “grand demonstrations” that accompanied Charcot’s research, Asylum traces the deterioration of the dynamic between doctor and patient as they transform from mutually entranced creators to jealous and spurned paramours, to fierce rivals, and finally to bitter enemies. Told in lyrical, feverish, and sometimes delirious prose, Nina Shope delivers a captivating narrative at the crossroads of Mary Shelley and Donna Tartt.
Publication Date: May 17, 2022
Paperback: 198 pages
ISBN: 9781950539512
Also available as an eBook
Winner of the Dzanc Prize for Fiction
A work of brilliant and innovative historical fiction, Asylum delves into the disturbing and seductive relationship between a young hysteric named Augustine and renowned nineteenth-century French neurologist J.M. Charcot. As Charcot risks his career to investigate the controversial disease of hysteria, Augustine struggles to make him acknowledge their interdependence and shared desires—until a new lover, M., drives them all to the brink of fracture.
Drawing upon the medical photography, hypnotic states, and “grand demonstrations” that accompanied Charcot’s research, Asylum traces the deterioration of the dynamic between doctor and patient as they transform from mutually entranced creators to jealous and spurned paramours, to fierce rivals, and finally to bitter enemies. Told in lyrical, feverish, and sometimes delirious prose, Nina Shope delivers a captivating narrative at the crossroads of Mary Shelley and Donna Tartt.
Publication Date: May 17, 2022
Paperback: 198 pages
ISBN: 9781950539512
Also available as an eBook
Winner of the Dzanc Prize for Fiction
A work of brilliant and innovative historical fiction, Asylum delves into the disturbing and seductive relationship between a young hysteric named Augustine and renowned nineteenth-century French neurologist J.M. Charcot. As Charcot risks his career to investigate the controversial disease of hysteria, Augustine struggles to make him acknowledge their interdependence and shared desires—until a new lover, M., drives them all to the brink of fracture.
Drawing upon the medical photography, hypnotic states, and “grand demonstrations” that accompanied Charcot’s research, Asylum traces the deterioration of the dynamic between doctor and patient as they transform from mutually entranced creators to jealous and spurned paramours, to fierce rivals, and finally to bitter enemies. Told in lyrical, feverish, and sometimes delirious prose, Nina Shope delivers a captivating narrative at the crossroads of Mary Shelley and Donna Tartt.
Publication Date: May 17, 2022
Paperback: 198 pages
ISBN: 9781950539512
Also available as an eBook
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR ASYLUM
“Asylum is historical fiction at its most intimate as we peer deeply into the interior of Augustine, a patient being treated for hysteria by nineteenth-century charismatic neurologist Charcot. The hospital is theatre, and the theatre involves both doctor and patient in a dangerous interplay of seduction and power. We feel the claustrophobia of obsession within each finely wrought sentence, and as we long for Augustine’s escape, we are pressed at each turn to interrogate the very nature of escape and the possibilities of freedom experienced within the self.” —Jessie van Eerden, author of Call It Horses
"Bold, dynamic, gorgeously written, Nina Shope’s Asylum is a fascinating exploration of the torqued relationship between the famous nineteenth-century French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot and his most well-known patient, Louise Augustine Gleizes; a wonderful catawampus-ing of the love story; and a richly researched investigation into power, desire, and narrative possibility." —Lance Olsen, author of Skin Elegies
"Asylum is a gorgeously imagined glimpse into the relationship of Charcot to his famous patient, Augustine, via haunting episodes where eroticism collides with scientific inquiry. I was captivated by this lyrical and intelligent examination of the ways we create the body via sculpture, photography, medicine, story, and gesture (both involuntary and rehearsed). A delicious novel that flays its characters to their dark, deeply human hearts." —Tina May Hall, author of The Snow Collectors
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nina Shope is the author of Hangings: Three Novellas, published by Starcherone Books. Asylum is her first full-length novel. Her fiction has appeared in Quarter After Eight, Fourteen Hills, 3rd Bed, Open City, Sleeping Fish, Salt Hill, and elsewhere. Her stories have been anthologized in PP/FF: An Anthology, New Standards: The First Decade of Fiction at Fourteen Hills, and Wreckage of Reason: XXperimental Women Writers Writing in the 21st Century. She holds an B.A. from Brown University and a MFA from Syracuse University. She currently lives in Denver, Colorado, with her husband, author Christopher Narozny, and their corgi.
