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The Asylum of Dr. Caligari

James Morrow

9781616962661
192 pages
Tachyon Publications Llc
Overview
“No one does history-meets-the-fantastic like Morrow. The Asylum of Dr. Caligari is a great example—Impressionism versus expressionism, psychology in the asylum of ‘dreams,’ the weaponization of art, big laughs and big ideas, a wild imagination, and smooth, subtle writing.”
—Jeffrey Ford, author of A Natural History of Hell

It is the summer of 1914. As the world teeters on the brink of the Great War, a callow American painter, Francis Wyndham, arrives at a renowned European insane asylum, where he begins offering art therapy under the auspices of Alessandro Caligari—sinister psychiatrist, maniacal artist, alleged sorcerer. And determined to turn the impending cataclysm to his financial advantage, Dr. Caligari will—for a price—allow governments to parade their troops past his masterpiece: a painting so mesmerizing it can incite entire regiments to rush headlong into battle.

The Asylum of Dr. Caligari is a timely tale that is by turns funny and erotic, tender and bayonet-sharp—but ultimately emerges as a love letter to that mysterious, indispensable thing called art.
Author Bio
James Morrow is the author of the World Fantasy Award–winning Towing Jehovah, the New York Times Notable Book Blameless in Abaddon,  and the Theodore Sturgeon Award–winning  Shambling Towards Hiroshima. His most recent novels include The Madonna and the Starship The Last Witchfinder, hailed by the Washington Post as “literary magic,” and The Philosopher’s Apprentice, which received a rave review from Entertainment Weekly.  A master of satiric and the surreal, Morrow has enjoyed comparison with Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, and John Updike. He lives in State College, Pennsylvania with a collection of Lionel trains and a rapidly growing library of DVDs of questionable taste.