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Title details for The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld - Available

The Interpretation of Murder

A Novel

by Jed Rubenfeld
Kirby Heyborne
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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An Intricate Tale of murder and the mind’s most dangerous mysteries
The Interpretation of Murder opens on a hot summer night in 1909 as Sigmund Freud arrives in New York. Among those waiting to greet him is Dr. Stratham Younger, a gifted physician who is one of Freud’s most ardent American supporters. And so begins the visit that will be the great genius’s first–and only–journey to America.
The morning after Freud’s arrival, in an opulent penthouse across the city, a woman is discovered murdered–whipped, mutilated, and strangled with a white silk tie. The next day, a rebellious heiress named Nora Acton barely escapes becoming the killer’s second victim. Yet, suffering from hysteria, Miss Acton cannot remember the terrifying incident or her attacker. Asked to consult on the case, Dr. Younger calls on the visiting Freud to guide him through the girl’s analysis.
The Interpretation of Murder is an intricately plotted, elegantly wrought entertainment filled with delicious surprises, subtle sleights of hand, and fascinating ideas. Drawing on Freud’s case histories, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and the rich history of New York, this remarkable novel marks the debut of a brilliantly engaging new storyteller.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    September 5, 2006

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780739346495
      • File size: 426070 KB
      • Duration: 14:47:38

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      It is Summer 1909 in New York City, and someone is torturing and killing young women. Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Stratham Younger are in the city, getting ready for Freud's lecture series at Clark University. When young heiress Nora Acton is attacked, the handsome Dr. Younger proceeds to carry out analysis to bring forth her suppressed memories. This mystery is suffused with New York atmosphere. Kirby Heyborne engages from the first with a crisp reading. He has a lovely time creating the various Germans, as well as the toughs from Tammany Hall, creating all with perfect accents and pitch. His pacing adds much to the suspense, bringing to life the streets of New York, as well as the inner workings of psychological genius. B.H.B. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      July 10, 2006
      The search for a serial killer during Sigmund Freud's 1909 visit to New York City, his one trip to the U.S., propels the plot of Yale law professor Rubenfeld's ambitious debut. Freud's arrival coincides with the sadistic murder of a beautiful young woman in an upscale hotel. A similar attack on another woman results in the victim's hysterical paralysis. The efforts of Dr. Stratham Younger, a protégé of Freud's, to recover the survivor's memories of her assailant lead Younger into a morass of politics, big money and kinky sexual escapades. Freud plays a background role, but the father of psychoanalysis does get to expound his ideas, demonstrate his diagnostic acumen and don an apparent martyr's robe. Readers will learn much about Freud's relationship with his then-disciple Carl Jung, the building of the Manhattan Bridge, the early opponents to Freud's theories and the central problem posed by Hamlet's "to be or not to be" soliloquy. While not as well crafted as Caleb Carr's similarly themed The Alienist
      , this well-researched and thought-provoking novel is sure to be a crowd pleaser. $500,000 marketing campaign; 15-city author tour.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      It's 1909, and skyscrapers "higher than anything built by the hand of man before" are beginning to blot out the sun over Manhattan. This really happened. Sigmund Freud "distinguished, immaculately groomed" is passing through on his only visit to the United States. This also really happened. A woman is strangled with a silk tie. This, too, has doubtless happened from time to time, but here it's also where the story begins. Murder, romance, and a primer on history are all built into this clockwork plot. Actor Ron Rifkin masters the obstacle course of narration flawlessly. He's man. He's woman. He's an Austrian Jew, an American heiress, an Irish sandhog. Clever entertainment, cleverly performed. B.H.C. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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