"Spectacular...fiendishly clever" Guardian.
On the same morning that Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung arrive in Manhattan to deliver a series of lectures, a debutante is found bound and strangled in her Broadway penthouse appartment. The following day, beautiful heiress Nora Acton is discovered tied to a chandelier at her parents home. Nora is unable to speak, and has no memory of her trauma. Freud and his American protege Stratham Younger are called upon to psychoanalyse Nora in order to help her regain her memory and to uncover the murderer's identity. The ensuing mystery is a real page turner, exploring Freud's ideas and the heated resistance to them combined with a beautiful evocation of New York in the early 1900's. Although Freud's visit to America was successful, it is widely believed that he suffered some form of trauma there, blaming the country for some of his pre-existing ailments. Rubenfeld has skillfully combined fact and fiction, producing an exciting crime novel with attention to historic detail. The whodunnit element of the story is fastly paced and keeps you guessing.
Another Richard and Judy's Book Club classic.
I loved the analysis of Hamlet and Freud's Oedipus complex, as well as the based on fact squabbles between the two psychologists. The author's note at the end of the novel clarifies which parts of the book are historical fact, and which are complete fiction as well as explaining any adjustments he made.
"Rubenfeld writes beautifully...an intriguing mystery" Sunday Telegraph
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