Book Reviews of Asylum (Vintage Contemporaries)

This is the first I've read of Mcgrath. His writing is very haunting and beautiful and the story stayed with me long after I read it. Very gothic.

A glimpse into life of a woman who is yearning for passion and danger. She lives on an estate near insane persons and her husband is a psychologist. This book takes you on a journey through the desires and passions of a beautiful and headstrong woman, who is living during a time when women weren't supposed to be headstrong, or think much for themselves. She journeys from picking the vegetables in her garden and taking care of her son in her hum drum daily routine, to another exciting world filled with danger, artists, and love.

This has been sitting on the bottom of a huge pile of books in my bedroom that topples over every time one of my dogs flops down for a nap. I'm getting sick of picking them up and will read them from the bottom up. It's like a Survivor Challenge as I wiggle out the bottom book without causing the whole lot to topple upon my head. I bought it five years ago at a library sale according to the withdrawn library stamp. Shameful.

Psychiatrist Peter Cleave tells a supposedly sordid tale of a former patient, love affairs gone terribly wrong, sexual obsession and madness but alas he’s such a boring fellow the story has no emotional appeal, no sense of drama, and no interesting tidbits to savor and drool over. He skims over the good stuff and me, being the fool I am, continued to read waiting for my interest to become engaged and hoping to feel something for these screwed up people. Alas, I remain a fool.

Doc Peter works in an asylum for the criminally insane which happens to be within walking distance of the home of their newly hired superintendent, his beautiful but bored housewife Stella and their young son Charlie. When an inmate named Edgar is hired on to do some work on their grounds Stella gets all hot and bothered by his sweltering looks and big brawny chest and begins to romanticize his criminal history. She starts to believe he only murdered his ex love because he loved her so very deeply. Awwww, isn't that the sweetest? So I assumed bad things were going to happen and was looking forward to an emotionally disturbing read about a dumb housewife and a hunky headcase but I was so bored I could barely get through it.

This could have been an interesting gothic-y tale but the problem for me was Peter’s first person narration. It makes the book feel a bit stuffy and distances me from the people he’s prattling on and on about. Because the book is told entirely from Peter’s point of view or from snippets he gleaned from interviews with Edgar and Stella, who withheld all interesting tidbits it seems, we are only told the unexciting parts of the story. Peter has no imagination and doesn’t fill in the blanks very well either. Damn it all. I’m not a perv, really I’m not, but when a book jacket touts “passion” and “strange love” I expect something slightly exciting and not a whole bunch of boring accounts of day to day strolls through the garden, tedious conversations and a painfully slow and uninteresting descent into madness.

I waded through countless pages waiting for something interesting to happen and honestly, for me, it never freaking did. Even when tragedy occurs I felt so distanced from the characters that there was no emotional reaction from me as a reader. And when the last revelation made by Peter is revealed I found it so ridiculously unbelievable that I wanted to scream. Finally, an emotional reaction but for all of the wrong reasons! I regret wasting several hours struggling through this book and can’t recommend it unless you’re into really boring melodramas.

This is my first time reading a Patrick McGrath story. It will not be my last. I don't know how I haven't come across his work before, and I feel I have to catch up on all that I've missed out on.

Normally, I finish a book and immediately pronounce to myself whether it was good or bad, and then I'm off to the next selection from my burgeoning bookshelves. It's been awhile, however, since I closed the pages of a story and had to sit and reflect for a few moments afterwards. Without question, this was an excellent book, and I needed more time to think on the very nature behind the story, the characters, and events. Needless to say, I brooded and ruminated on the ending for quite some time.

Asylum, by Patrick McGrath has done all of this. It has all the elements of a story that I like -- a haunting setting in the gloomy and sweeping English countryside, a dark love affair, secrets, and ambiguity.

Stella is the mother of a young boy, Charlie and the wife of Max, an esteemed psychiatrist at a maximum-security institution for the criminally insane just outside of London, England, in the late 1950s. Her day to day life of wife and mother is mundane, and her husband really doesn't have the drive or passion to keep her interested. Only a few patients are granted access to the grounds around the house on the institution, to work on the garden or to redo the old conservatory, with a watchful group of staff nearby. Unbeknownst to all, though, Stella becomes the lover of an incredibly dangerous patient, Edgar. He's quite an artist, but he's also destructively jealous -- his unending stay in the institution was determined because he killed his wife in a brutal and mutilating manner, apparently because she was seeing other men. Stella, however, still finds herself uncontrollably drawn to him and caught up in the passion of this bizarre love.

This is an absolutely fascinating story and it is incredibly written, told through the perspective of another doctor at the institution, the older and wiser Dr. Peter Cleave. I initially thought I wouldn't care for this character, but I ultimately found that not only was it necessary in order to describe a general understanding of the mind -- the breakdown of Stella, the depth of manipulation by Edgar, and the ultimate weaknesses of Stella's husband, but it also explained the neurosis and psychosis of the characters. The insight Dr. Cleave provided was so critical to understand how these fictionalized people became completely devoid of reality only to succumb to the obsession everyone represses -- the ability to become thoroughly self-obsessed, whether or not it destroys innocent lives.

With Peter telling the story, in some scenes almost clinically, it created a much more haunting feel and I felt completely entrenched in the story. Several times it seemed to intensify so sadly and in such a disturbing nature, that I couldn't fathom it to turn more grim than it already was, but the author was able to continue down that path even further. Peter provides a trusting credibility that lends quite a bit to the pleasure that I had in the twists that occurred. I was mortified, angry, heartbroken, and completely engrossed in the story.

Patrick McGrath has created a suspenseful psychological thriller of obsession with oneself. It is haunting and dark, deeply erotic in some scenes, and altogether disturbing. Highly recommended, and I will be on the lookout for more Patrick McGrath books.

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Its a dark tale of a woman and a man that fall in love under strange circumstances. A Gothic novel to be sure. Worth the read and there is a movie that was made based off this book. The movie is twisted too.

A VERY different sort of tragic love story. Though the setting is in the early 1960s, this tale has a true Victorian-Gothic feel to it. And the narration! How fascinating for the narrator to not have his own pull until the end of the book! That in and of itself makes the book cry for re-reading, for discussion - even for study. It's impossible to really understand the characters - the two main lovers - as their individual acts are horrific, but at the same time, horrifyingly fascinating.

I truly enjoyed this odd little book and would most certainly read another by this dark author. Though I probably wouldn't overly recommend this to one to just anyone.

I really enjoyed this fast-paced thriller. In fact, I read it in under a days time and had trouble putting it down. The ending was a bit disappointing but it made sense with the story and characters.

A great read. The book's description does not do it justice. A real page-turner!

A real page turner!! Don't start this book if you have to get up early the next morning.

This book was very different, but in a good way.