Dance in a Madhouse

Philadelphia, 1905
A month ago Owen Townsend was a medical intern and primed for success. Now he is locked in an asylum where the public is invited to gawk at the patients as they dance. His fall was sudden: typhoid fever, delirium, an act of violence. Is Owen sane—a victim of a toxin that has cleared his system? Or is he as psychotic as his doctor claims?

Owen soon learns that there are people who want him incarcerated forever or dead. There are fires. Attacks that defy logic. Terror instead of treatment. To survive, he must navigate the labyrinth of the madhouse and convince Brumbaugh, a shrewd police inspector, to join his cause. Celeste, an enigmatic young opera singer who transfixes him after he saves her from suicide, might have the clues he needs. But Owen needs to decipher riddles from her tortured past to find a way toward freedom.

Set at the dawn of modern psychiatric treatment, Dance in a Madhouse, is a thrilling testament to courage and resilience. Can Owen and Celeste’s determination overcome the odds against them? Are redemption and healing possible? The dances will tell.

About the Book

Dance in a Madhouse
1917

George Bellows — Dance in a Madhouse
1917, George Bellows

What was A Dance in a Madhouse?

In asylums at the time this story took place, spectators were invited to watch “lunatic balls” where patients danced to an orchestra. George Bellows, an artist, captured the pathos of these events in his lithograph “Dance in a Madhouse.”

The contemporary poet, Margo Taft Stever, tells of the stigma the patients felt. “Behind a glass wall, well-dressed spectators, riveted, sit amused. Looking at them looking, the patients know they are through.” (From “The Lunatic Ball,” Cracked Piano, Poems by Margo Taft Stever, Cavankerry Press, 2019.)

Reviews

“When a brilliant young doctor is confined to an early-twentieth-century asylum, misdiagnosis and confinement become tools of control rather than healing. With vivid period detail and psychological precision, Jess Wright reveals the brutality hidden beneath the era’s genteel façade. The result is a gripping, yet deeply humane, novel that gives voice to those silenced and reminds us how easily reason can be labeled madness.”
– Jacqueline Friedland
USA Today bestselling author of Counting Backwards

“Jess Wright takes readers on a wild ride through a mental asylum filled with a host of fascinating characters and mysterious events. A thoroughly engaging read.”
– Jody Hadlock
Author of The Lives of Diamond Bessie

“A riveting story with richly-developed characters and jam-packed suspense. Chilling and enlightening, revealing human vulnerability and kindness.”
– Eileen Brill
Author of A Letter in the Wall

“This spine-tingling historical mystery is a page-turner with extraordinary depth. Transforming weakness into strength, solving puzzles that seem insolvable, and never giving up hope—the book speaks loud and clear to anyone confronted with illness and untoward effects of treatment today.”
– Giovanni A. Fava, MD, Professor, Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna, Italy.

“ . . . An action-propelled search for the truth.”
– Rebecca D’Harlingue
Author of The Lines Between Us and The Map Colorist

“Psychologically true . . . a thriller of the mind.”
– John Markowitz, M.D.
Professor of Clinical Psychiatry
Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons