The mad women's ball

In 1885, whether mad or simply inconvenient, a Parisian woman can easily end up incarcerated against her will at the Salpêtrière, a former gunpowder factory converted into an asylum for the female insane. Head nurse Geneviève believes in order and the (relatively) humane methods of Dr. Charcot, a pioneer of neurology experimenting with hypnosis to treat mental illness. Yet there are no good men in Mas' world. Eugénie, daughter of a wealthy lawyer, is but one Salpêtrière victim. When her father learns a disconcerting secret about his independent daughter, he splits the difference between madness and heresy, summarily committing Eugénie. The other inmates look forward to the Lenten Ball, an annual event where the well-heeled of Paris pay handsomely to mingle with and gape at the asylum's inmates. Tension mounts as the ball nears and Eugénie must convince Geneviève, her only hope, to help her escape. This short first novel by French writer Mas highlights the plight of powerless women and is set in an interesting era in which the burgeoning sciences of psychiatry and neurology exist uneasily alongside spiritualism.

French writer Mas debuts with a cinematic gothic story--soon to be a feature film--set in an abusive and exploitive 19th-century Parisian asylum. La Salpêtrière is inhabited almost entirely by women and girls whose male relatives have had them committed for hysteria. As Mas reveals, most of these women are survivors of rape or sexual abuse, but as far as the average Parisian is concerned, the women are grotesque and most likely dangerous. Set in 1885, during the weeks leading up to the hospital's annual costume ball, at which the bourgeoisie can indulge their voyeuristic inclinations and rub elbows with the "mad women," Mas's novel alternates among the perspectives of three characters. Louise fantasizes about becoming charismatic Dr. Charcot's next celebrity patient and about marrying a junior doctor; Eugénie is a bourgeois young woman who claims to see visions of the dead; and Geneviève is a long-time Salpêtrière nurse whose unwavering loyalty to her employer begins to falter as events unfold. Mas elegantly blends feminist history and spiritualism, and poignantly demonstrates how the hospital is both prison and refuge for its residents, as Geneviève simultaneously grows disillusioned and empowered. Mas's dark tale will have readers transfixed. (Sept.)