Knopf Doubleday, Belletristik, Butcher (Englisch, Joyce Carol Oates, 2024)

From one of our most accomplished storytellers, an extraordinary and arresting novel about a women&rsquo s 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nineteenth century, and a terrifying doctor who wants to change the world In this harrowing story based on authentic historical documents, we follow the career of Dr.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, &ldquo Father of Gyno-Psychiatry,&rdquo 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 state&mdash women he subjects to the most grotesque modes of experimentation. As he begins to establish himself as a pioneer of nineteenth-century surgery, Weir&rsquo s ambition is fueled by his obsessive fascination with a young Irish indentured servant named Brigit, who becomes not only Weir&rsquo s primary experimental subject, but also the agent of his destruction. Narrated by Silas Weir&rsquo s eldest son, who has repudiated his father&rsquo s 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.