Butcher

âSimply the most consistently inventive, brilliant, curious and creative writer goingâ GILLIAN FLYNN

'Gripping ⦠Bravura storytelling' VOGUE

'A blood-soaked, gothic nightmare' FINANCIAL TIMES

From one of our most accomplished storytellers, an extraordinary and arresting novel about a womenâs asylum in the nineteenth century, and a terrifying doctor who wants to change the world.

In this harrowing story based on authentic historical documents, we follow the career of Dr. Silas Weir, âFather of Gyno-Psychiatry,â as he ascends from professional anonymity to national renown. Humiliated by a procedure gone terribly wrong, Weir is forced to take a position at the New Jersey Asylum for Female Lunatics, where he reigns. There, he is allowed to continue his practice, unchecked for decades, making a name for himself by focusing on women who have been neglected by the stateâ"women he subjects to the most grotesque modes of experimentation. As he begins to establish himself as a pioneer of nineteenth-century surgery, Weirâs ambition is fueled by his obsessive fascination with a young Irish indentured servant named Brigit, who becomes not only Weirâs primary experimental subject, but also the agent of his destruction.

Narrated by Silas Weirâs eldest son, who has repudiated his fatherâs brutal legacy, Butcher is a unique blend of fiction and fact, a nightmare voyage through the darkest regions of the American psyche conjoined, in its startling conclusion, with unexpected romance. Once again, Joyce Carol Oates has written a spellbinding novel confirming her position as one of our celebrated American visionaries of the imagination.

'A master storyteller' THE TIMES

'Vividly and compellingly-drawn' iNEWS