Asylum (Vintage Contemporaries) - Softcover

McGrath, Patrick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679781382 ISBN 13: 9780679781387

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1998

Synopsis

Stella Raphael, a woman of great beauty and formidable intelligence, is married to Max, a staid and unimaginative forensic psychiatrist. Max has taken a job in a huge top-security mental hospital in rural England and Stella, far from London society, finds herself restless and bored. Then into her lonely existence comes Edgar Stark, a brilliant sculptor confined to the hospital after killing his wife in a psychotic rage. He comes to Stella's garden merely to rebuild an old, Victorian conservatory, but there's an overwhelming physical attraction to this desperate man that Stella is powerless to ignore. Their explosive affair pits them against Stella's husband, her child, and the entire institution. When the crisis comes, Stella makes her decision -- one that will destroy several lives and precipitate an appalling tragedy that could only be fueled by illicit sexual love.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

'This is a desolate sort of place, though god knows it's had the best years of my life. It is maximum security, a walled city that rises from a high ridge to dominate the surrounding country . . .'

Summer, 1959, and Max Raphael is appointed deputy superintendent of an isolated hospital for the criminally insane. When Max decides to have his lodging's Victorian conservatory restored it is a patient, Edgar Stark, who comes to do the work.

And there Max's beautiful and lonely wife Stella first befriends Edgar and later becomes his lover. But as their secret affair becomes ever more obsessive so their love threatens to destroy everything it touches . . .

'Authentically tragic, unforgettable' Daily Telegraph

About the Author:

Patrick McGrath was born in London and grew up near Broadmoor Hospital, where for many years his father was a medical superintendent. He is the author of Blood and Water and Other Tales, The Grotesque, Spider, and Dr. Haggard's Disease, and he was the co-editor, with Bradford Morrow, of The New Gothic. He lives in New York City and London and is married to the actress Maria Aitken.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0679781382
• ISBN 13: 9780679781387
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272