In a fusion of fact and fiction, nineteenth-century women institutionalised as hysterics reveal what history ignored

‘Where are the hysterics, those magnificent women of former times?’ wrote Jacques Lacan. Long history’s ghosts, marginalised and dispossessed due to their gender and class, they are reimagined by Maud Casey as complex, flesh-and-blood people with stories to tell. These linked, evocative prose portraits, accompanied by period photographs and medical documents both authentic and invented, poignantly restore the humanity to the nineteenth-century female psychiatric patients confined in Paris’s Salpetriere hospital and reduced to specimens for study by the celebrated neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot and his male colleagues.

‘City of Incurable Women is a brilliant exploration of the type of female bodily and psychic pain once commonly diagnosed as hysteria - and the curiously hysterical response to it commonly exhibited by medical men. It is a novel of powerful originality, riveting historical interest, and haunting lyrical beauty.’ - Sigrid Nunez, author of The Friend and What Are You Going Through

‘City of Incurable Women is poetic rather than polemic, elegantly written and filled with resonant imagery… Affirmative and inspiring, a powerful demonstration of Maud Casey’s artistry.’ -Boston Globe

‘Casey’s subtle braiding of suffering and strength is the beating heart of this extraordinary work of imagination…These 'incurable women’ create complex selves always in motion-full of pain but also power, pleasure, and above all mystery.‘ -On the Seawall

'Enlightening…[City of Incurable Women] defies convention and revels in searing, gorgeous language. -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

'With acute empathy…Casey masterfully magnifies the stories of 'incurable’ women in Paris’s 19th-century Salpetriere hospital.‘ -Shelf Awareness

'Lyrical…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.’ -Booklist

‘An innovative novel…Soaringly lyrical’ - Kirkus Reviews