City of Incurable Women

I would follow Maud Casey anywhere. In City of Incurable Women, she has given us her best work yet. This is a song for the forgotten, full of voices that will stay with you and guide you—an astonishing portrayal of rage and hope. What a glorious work of art and what a true gift to us.

— Paul Yoon, author of Snow Hunters and Run Me to Earth

In exquisite prose, Casey has built a city inside a book, a city that is a hospital, a museum, a dance, a body in ecstasy just outside the frame. On every page of this achingly beautiful book, Casey brings a wise and feral attention to the so-called incurables of the ‘era of soul science’—Augustine, Louise, Marie, Geneviève, and a chorus of nameless others singing their private beginnings and public ends.

— Danielle Dutton, author of SPRAWL and Margaret the First

An amazing book.

— Héctor Tobar, Alta Journal

[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 dedication reads ‘for my fellow incurables’ and this short, enchantingly strange book feels animated by compassion.

— Star Tribune

Sensual, terrifying, humorous, and absurd, [City of Incurable Women] portrays many incurable things—namely, the human spirit.

— BOMB Magazine

Investigational and piercing. . . . [Casey] dismantles the facade of cold, medical logic and its dehumanization of women while also creating beautiful poetry.

— San Francisco Book Review

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

An evocative blend of fiction and nonfiction spirited with emotional power and historic significance. . . . Casey has written a triumphant homage to the women of Paris’s Salpêtrière asylum, and her fellow incurables everywhere.

— Longest Chapter

Enlightening. . . . Casey’s rich imaginative leaps make for tantalizing and affecting portraits. [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 Salpêtrière 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

A stinging yet lyrically sensual feminist exploration. . . . Casey delivers a fascinating historical look at female mental health treatment of long ago—complete with medical documents and illustrations.

— Melanie Fleishman, Center for Fiction Bookstore (Brooklyn, NY)

Casey who, in giving [women diagnosed with hysteria] voices and endowing them with a skilled novelist’s lyrical, rhythmic language . . . shows that this 19th-century malady exists on a continuum with martyred saints, burned witches, and today’s chronic fatigue patients.

— Laurie Greer, Politics and Prose Bookstore (Washington, DC)

My words cannot do this novel justice. What Casey has written is lyrical beauty. . . . Each page teems with the emotional release these women were denied; each page is brilliant ecstasy.

— Nikole Lotton, Bookshop Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA)

Reduced to stereotypes of the fragile female mind by narcissistic psychiatrists, [the women’s] inner lives reclaim a new, fuller form in this remarkable book.

— Keaton Patterson, Brazos Bookstore (Houston, TX)