Asylum

I highly recommend this book. Not a tale for the fragile of heart. Stella, a vibrant woman, seemingly overlooked by her husband, becomes entangled with a psychiatric patient at the hospital where they are stationed. The patient is Edgar Stark and the attraction is immediate, sexual and all consuming. A sad, dark tale all round. Culminating in the death of a child, suicide and the destruction of a seemingly normal woman (Stella). I was quite intrigued by the dark turn of Dr. Peter Cleave, a friend to all. He came out in this story as a kind of malignant presence, who masqueraded as the opposite. This was a dark and often sad tale, but life is not happy for most of us. The descriptions of the bleak Welsh countryside resonated deeply. This is a worthy, well written tale, but very dark and heavy, very sad and you will feel like weeping over what happens to the characters. Brilliant writing, crafty suspense, and a real insight into the heaviness of the heart.

Fascinating story of obsession. A beautiful woman and a psychopath fall in lust. Stella is a completely self-absorbed character who causes great harm to those who love her. She throws herself at the wrong man and they begin a strange relationship that excludes reality. I couldn't put the book down and found it well written and mesmerizing.

A psychiatrist narrator recounts how his "friends" (we begin to wonder the narrator's true motives as the novel moves along), fellow psychiatrist Max and Max's wife Stella, suffer a failed marriage. Max is effete, inept, egotistical, completely lacking in passion and intimacy. His whole life is defined by his work at an asylum for criminal patients. Stella's marriage to Max in a way is the real asylum. Tormented by passions and lusts, Stella begins a completely irrational affair with one of the patients, thus beginning a whole new kind of torture. This is a novel of extremes--extreme loneliness, extreme passion, extreme repression, extreme self-abandonment. Humans were not designed for healthy relationships, the narrator seems to be saying, and thus are doomed to a life of imprisonment whether it be that of the frosty cell of a passionless marriage or the mercurial tumult of illicit sexual passion. McGrath has created an assured, suspensful novel wrought with psychological complexity and universal themes, which makes it one of the best novels in the last ten years or so. If you enjoy this novel, I hope you will try James Lasdun's The Horned Man, another great novel about repression told by a dubious narrator, and a perfect complement to Asylum.

This disturbing psychological novel, set in England and Wales around 1960, is a haunting look at the descent and self-destruction of a beautiful, middle-aged woman Stella Raphael, who becomes obsessed over a psychotic patient at her husband's mental institution outside London. Max, her husband and first-rate psychiatrist, is on track to become superintendent of the facility, but seems to have no understanding that he has a neglected, bored housewife on his hands. Edgar Stark, institutionalized for killing his wife in a rage, is everything her husband is not: handsome, rugged, artistic, sexy, etc. The garden around their home where Edgar is permitted to do renovation becomes the locale for a furious affair with greater and greater risks being taken. The tension in the first part of the book is palpable as it is evident that Stella's behavior will have enormous consequences for all in her life. The story is told from the perspective of Peter Cleave, Edgar's psychiatrist at Max's institute, many years later after spending countless hours with all parties involved, some patients, some not, concerning their thinking and actions as the fallout from the garden affair unfolds. It is a helpless feeling to watch someone spiral down a path of hopelessness. Interesting enough, the psychiatrists in this story are more manipulated by their patients than provide assistance. In this telling, "curing" an extremely obsessive person seems to be next to impossible, despite normal appearances.

Gets three because it was such a compelling plot. But basically it wasn't much of a story. Don't recommend.

Some friends and I picked this book to read for a book dicussion group. I thought maybe it would be dark and haunting in a kind of spooky way, like Shirley Jackson's "House on Haunted Hill" and so forth. I was disappointed on that end, but that doesn't mean this isn't a very well written book. The main thing that struck me about this book was that its entirely accurate picture of what a depressive state can do to one's mind and attitudes about things happening in their life is contagious; I walked away from this book feeling incredibly depressed! Maybe I empathize too much, but I found the feelings depicted here to be very accurate, so maybe that makes the book a little more educational. One of the very good things about this book is the narrator; I particularly liked that aspect. Overall, a very well written book but perhaps too dark in a realistic way for some people.

I have just finished and I know reading this book will turn out to have been an unforgettable experience. It is a complex work told in that rather aloof and almost Vicorian Novel style (that I love and rarely find). I became obsessed with the book in the several days I spent reading it...not the usual obsession of wanting to get back into it but rather obsessed with the details ...the yellow uniforms the inmates wore, Stella's demeanor, style, psyche. My god this man is a great writer Perfection. The reason I read like a voracious maniac. For the rare moment when you know it is not merely good but freaking magnificent. I've ordered another of this genius freaks novels. I feel I should not but I will gobble them greedily. How affecting brilliance is.

Parfait état du livre. Ce livre m'a suprise, il vaut totalement la peine d'être lu. C'est un livre de type psychologique selon moi et n'est pas du tout long à lire. La version anglaise est largement compréhensible pour des personnes ayant un niveau B1 en anglais.

io amo profondamente i libri di mcgrath e questo è in assoluto il mio preferito (insieme a grottesco). questa storia d'amore che trascina tutti nella follia è abilmente scritto e noi riusciamo ad avvicinarci all'ossessione di stella in maniera magistrale finendo anche noi nella follia, senza più distinguere realtà e finzione. ho letto questo libro in italiano e non potevo non averlo in inglese. se in italiano il libro è coinvolgente, il tutto viene accentuato nella versione inglese dove si può assaporare lo stile unico di mcgrath. la copertina è diversa rispetto a quella qui riportata, ma l'ho trovata decisamente migliore

I first became aware of this after watching a programme about the criminally insane. This author was featured as his father had become medical supervisor of Broadmoor. I have always been interested in this type of establishment, indeed, my dragging my bairns round ruined establishments has turned them both into urban explorers especially hospitals and asylums. Anyway, thought I'd look him up and purchased this tale of obsessive love. The book is just superb. The thing that got me was how does this male author get so deep inside the mind of a female. It just so happens that I have been considering splitting, in my darker moments wondering how I could explain we could be in a relationship without him grinding himself into me, whilst I'm trying to sleep, and then getting me to deal with the ensuring erection. Dark stuff. Should be thoughts I keep to myself. Yet there is a scene in this book that says exactly this. I couldn't believe it. It can't end well and doesn't. I honestly don't even know if I feel any pity. I believe he uses her from the beginning to aid his escape but she refuses to see this. It's as described, obsessive love, as hopeless a state anyone can be in and a state, if at all possible, should be avoided at all costs. I just wish her husband had gone on the school trip. It's a gripping read.

Tragic love story, not normally my kind of book, but book club pick. Held my attention all the way through.

Wonderful book! But the type is too small.