"The Madwomen Of Paris" by Jennifer Cody Epstein

 

A young woman with amnesia falls under the influence of a powerful doctor in Paris’s notorious women’s asylum, where she must fight to reclaim dangerous memories—and even more perilously, her sanity—in this gripping historical novel inspired by true events, from the bestselling author of Wunderland.

“I didn’t see her the day she came to the asylum. Looking back, this sometimes strikes me as unlikely. Impossible, even, given how utterly her arrival would upend the already chaotic order of things at the Salpêtrière—not to mention change the course of my own life there.”

When Josephine arrives at the Salpêtrière she is covered in blood and badly bruised. Suffering from near-complete amnesia, she is diagnosed with what the Paris papers are calling “the epidemic of the age”: hysteria. It is a disease so baffling and widespread that Doctor Jean-Martine Charcot, the asylum’s famous director, devotes many of his popular public lectures to the malady. To Charcot’s delight, Josephine also proves extraordinarily susceptible to hypnosis, the tool he uses to unlock hysteria’s myriad (and often sensational) symptoms. Soon Charcot is regularly featuring Josephine on his stage, entrancing the young woman into fantastical acts and hallucinatory fits before enraptured audiences and eager newsmen—many of whom feature her on their paper’s front pages.

For Laure, a lonely asylum attendant assigned to Josephine’s care, Charcot’s diagnosis seems a godsend. A former hysteric herself, she knows better than most that life in the Salpêtrière’s Hysteria Ward is far easier than in its dreaded Lunacy division, from which few inmates ever return. But as Josephine’s fame as Charcot’s “star hysteric” grows, her memory starts to return—and with it, images of a horrific crime she believes she’s committed. Haunted by these visions, and helplessly trapped in Charcot’s hypnotic web, she starts spiraling into actual insanity. Desperate to save the girl she has grown to love, Laure plots their escape from the Salpêtrière and its doctors. First, though, she must confirm whether Joséphine is actually a madwoman, soon to be consigned to the Salpêtrière’s brutal Lunacy Ward—or a murderer, destined for the guillotine.

Both are dark possibilities—but not nearly as dark as what Laure will unearth when she sets out to discover the truth. ~ taken from Goodreads

This was a really hard book to finish. This is a mix of genres- historical fiction, coming of age, mystery, as well as family & friendship drama. I've always been drawn to stories about mental asylums set in the past but this one moved so terribly slow. This story does do an excellent job of describing the horrific conditions women were susceptible to while in medical care. They had no rights as patients and received poor care and treatment by nearly every person meant to care for them. 

Doctor Jean-Martin Charcot is, of course, not a likeable character. Arrogant and only out for clout. It's hard to believe he is on the field of medicine to actually find any type of cure. The story of Josephine and Laure seemed haphazard and kind of just an afterthought. Just a way to loosely bind all historical information into a fictional plot that more people would read. 

This novel moved at a snail's pace. The writing style is less than desirable and nothing happened until the last quarter of the book.  After 3-4 days I wanted to call it quits and if it wasn't an ARC I wouldn't have finished it. 

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing- Ballentine for allowing me an advanced copy to read and give my honest review. It's a 3 star read. 

The Madwomen Of Paris is available now so pick up a copy at your local library, bookstore, or online retailer.  

Happy Reading!