Henry James' Midnight Song - Hardcover

Hill, Carol De Chellis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671755757 ISBN 13: 9780671755751

Publisher: Poseidon Pr, 1993

Synopsis

When a bloody body disappears from Dr. Freud's study, Inspector Maurice Le Blanc must cope with Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Henry James, Edith Wharton, and others. By the author of The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer. 35,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Carol De Chellis Hill teaches writing at New York University.

Reviews

Feminism, the nature of evil, the art of the novel, romance, psychoanalysis and anti-Semitism are among the topics tackled in this exuberant novel by the author of Let's Fall in Love . A series of women are murdered in fin de siecle Vienna, necessitating an investigation by famous French detective and bon vivant , Maurice Cheval LeBlanc. Among the players (and suspects) are the quintessentially American Mains; Mr. Main's sophisticated cousin, the Countess Bettina von Gerzl; Dr. Freud, whose wife and sister-in-law had, for a few minutes, sheltered a corpse in their parlor; Henry James, briefly Freud's patient; and Edith Wharton, under the spell of nascent eroticism, thanks to Morton Fullertan. Hill takes the reader on an exhilarating, kaleidoscopic tour of influential people and ideas at the turn of the century. She is perhaps too ambitious, however, stuffing the chronological parameters of her novel with more than they can rightfully claim. As the introduction by the fictional editor of this manuscript notes, "although all of the events occurred between 1890 and 1910, the chronology is select and confused. . . " If Hill's style often seems overly voluptuous ("black horses galloped, black angels in the night," or "she was joyous now as her feet bounced up the stairs, thinking again she must share it with someone, she simply, simply must! "), such florid writing actually nourishes her unabashedly romantic and sensual narrative.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Expatriate American literati and the heavyweights of psychoanalysis collide in this spirited novel set in the dreamy streets of fin de siŠcle Vienna--the latest extravaganza from Hill (The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer, 1985, etc.). Edith Wharton is trying to save Henry James from Sigmund Freud in one of the many paths taken by this complex mystery tale. Believing the doctor's theories on the childhood origins of female hysteria to be so much poppycock, Mrs. Wharton inadvertently finds herself in the middle of a serial killer's rampage, which has the anti-Semites of Vienna, who believe the murders to be Jewish ritual killings, in an uproar. A famous detective is summoned from Paris when the home of Dr. Freud becomes the latest murder site and the situation becomes critical: the corpse has disappeared. The father of psychoanalysis, the formidable Mrs. Wharton, and the faltering Henry James, who feels guilty that a dear friend in Venice has killed herself, all become suspects, along with the beautiful Countess von Gerzl, with whom the debonair Inspector promptly begins a passionate affair. Add to this cast of luminaries a visiting all-American family, cousins of the Countess, which consists of thoroughly middle-class parents, three precocious adolescents, and their radically feminist aunt, and cameo appearances by Jung and his most famous patient, Sabina Spielrein, and the narrative becomes busy indeed--so much so that the threat represented by the murderer as he stalks the Inspector seems merely an afterthought. Rich and flavorful, with the period's ferment of ideas ably represented--but largely lacking the essential dramatic ingredients on which the whodunit depends. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Poseidon Pr
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0671755757
• ISBN 13: 9780671755751
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 445