The Madwomen of Paris

Title:  The Madwomen of Paris

Author:  Jennifer Cody Epstein

Publication Information:  Ballantine Books. 2023. 336 pages.

ISBN:  0593158008 / 978-0593158005

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Rating:   ★★

Opening Sentence:  "I didn't see her the day she came to the asylum"

Favorite Quote:  "What I do know - what I will go to my grave averring - is that with very few exceptions, the symptoms I witnessed there were real... the illness underlying them all was the same some strange, alchemical interaction between our tortured psyches and our abused bodies, between the intolerable experiences we struggled to banish from our thoughts and the fragile physiques that fell victim to that struggle."

The Salpetriere started as a gun powder factory. In the 1600s, it became a hospital for women who could not afford other care. It became a home for the learning disabled and mentally ill. Women with other disorders, such as epilepsy, were often part of this group. With available subjects, the hospital became a place of study of neurological and psychiatric cases especially under the leadership of Jean-Martin Charcot. At the time such illnesses were labeled as hysteria. In the 1800s, Sigmand Freud studied here. His translation of Charcot's work became the basis of his field of psychoanalysis.

Inspired by this history, The Madwomen of Paris presents a fictional account of the days of this asylum under Charcot. The book presents the story, of scientific discovery, but, even more so, of women used and abandoned for the purposes of others, and of a dream of escape.

The story is told from the perspective of Laure, who ends up at Salpetriere because of the death of her father and the destitute state that leaves her in. She is brought in as a patient but ends up working as an attendant because she has nowhere else to go. She becomes virtually the sole attendant to one particular patient - the one who is the centerpiece of Dr. Charcot's demonstrations of his discoveries.

The book presents the horrifying and tragic narrative of the treatments tried on these women. It simultaneously presents the story of the relationship between these two women. At times, the book seems iterative, with cycles upon cycles of experimentations and descriptions that are at times difficult to get through. 

The broader image of this book is that of the abhorrent treatment of women in the time and place of this history. Josephine is a hysteric and subjected to increasing experimentation, not necessarily aimed at her cure. Laure is sent to the asylum as grief from her circumstances overwhelms her, and she has literally nowhere else to go. Her younger sister Amelie is taken from her and put in foster care; the system then loses track of her.

However, since the focus of the book is on the asylum and the scientific experimentation, there is a distance created from this broader theme and the emotion that surrounds this aspect of the story. That distance creates an emotional detachment to the book, despite its compelling topic. I find the premise of the book - the history and the science - fascinating. However, the telling of story unfortunately does not work for me.

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