City of Incurable Women

December 15, 2021
An innovative novel examining the experiences of the female "hysterics" at the infamous Salp�tri�re Hospital in 19th-century Paris. The photographs of the women of Salp�tri�re range from pity-inducing to horrific. In black and white, the portraits show women in "passionate attitudes," the phrase used for the phases of hysteria. The women in the photos suffer from a multitude of issues: anorexia, religious fervor, epilepsy, and other conditions, some of which were little more than moodiness. In Casey's unusual collection of short pieces that blur lines among fiction, poetry, and essay, these photos and other historical records, such as manuals and case notes, are used as the basis of poetic meditations on the collective and individual lives of these "incurables." Some of the women have names: "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" tells the story of Augustine, who escaped from the asylum by dressing as a man. "Father, Ether, Sea" illuminates the life of Blanche, who falls into the category of "best girls," women who were exploited into performances in the asylum amphitheater to show off their ailments and the doctors' "cures," which often cross the line into abuses of all kinds. Some of the chapters are about the women as an anonymous group, such as "In the Before," told in the first-person plural about the types of lives the women had before they came to Salp�tri�re: They were orphans or children of manual laborers, impoverished, hyperactive, or melancholy. These stories belong most closely to the tradition of ekphrastic poetry, poems written based on visual art and often written in the voice of a figure from the image. The results are most successful when the soaringly lyrical language illuminates, rather than overshadows, the women's compelling experiences. A strongly conceived, though inconsistently rendered, scrapbook from a dark chapter of the belle epoque.

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Starred review from December 20, 2021
Casey’s enlightening latest (after The Man Who Walked Away) imagines the lives of female “hysterics” confined at the Salpêtrière, a 19th-century psychiatric hospital in Paris. The work, unshackled from traditional elements such as plot, characters, or earned endings, alternately reads like a prose poem, a fever dream, and a compendium of primary sources. Casey wanders among the thoughts and histories of a chambermaid, a foundling, and a seamstress, juxtaposing their motives, thoughts, and dreams with accounts of their rapes by previous employers and sexual exploitation by their doctors who “disguise it as science,” as well as the dehumanizing doctors’ case notes, which mention tattooing the patients with the name of the hospital. The first-person plural narration, meanwhile, blurs the women’s identities (“None of us wanted to fall, but then we were falling”). Illuminating illustrations and references to the real people who inspired the story add texture to a distressing account of a dark history, and Casey’s rich imaginative leaps make for tantalizing and affecting portraits. It defies convention and revels in searing, gorgeous language. In fact, this is worth reading twice. Agent: Alice Tasman, Jean V. Naggar Literary.

February 1, 2022
Following a stint in nonfiction with The Art of Mystery (2018), novelist Casey turns her lyrical prose back to fiction with this work inspired by the real stories of women in Paris' Salp�tri�re hospital. Casey chronicles the work of early neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, who used photography and hypnosis as tools to study mental illness. Though celebrated in the field, Charcot often treated his patients as subhuman, using them as pawns to gain knowledge. Through thorough research and a cutting pen, Casey elevates these women back to their deserved place in history, bringing to life those who were reduced to mere photographs. Newcomers to Casey's work might be daunted by these vignettes, which sometimes seem more stream of consciousness than cohesive narrative. The book isn't for the fainthearted, but those interested in early medicine will find the stories of Charcot's patients fascinating, and fans of Casey's previous works will rejoice in the new one.

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