Jess Wright is the author of the new novel Dance in a Madhouse. He also has written the novel A Stream to Follow. He is a psychiatrist, and he lives in Louisville, Kentucky.
Q: You write that the inspiration for your new novel came from a story you were told--can you say more about that?
A: When a poet, Margo Taft Stever, asked me to write an introduction to one of her books, The Cracked Piano, I became fascinated with the true story behind several of her poems.
Margo’s great-grandfather, Peter Taft, brother of President William Howard Taft, was held against his wishes in a mental asylum in the early 1900s after he contracted typhoid fever and had a brief mental disturbance.
Margo suspected that Peter never had an actual mental illness—his symptoms were a result of treatment for typhoid fever. Peter’s letters from the asylum, which Margo shared with me, were lucid and heart-rending.
I based the fictional story in Dance in a Madhouse on Peter Taft’s unfortunate saga. The protagonist is Owen Townsend, a young doctor who, like Peter, has a brief psychosis when treated for typhoid fever. Owen finds himself locked in an asylum where his life is threatened and he must use his wits to find a way out.
Q: How did you research the novel, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: My most important discovery, and a welcome surprise, was finding the lithograph Dance in a Madhouse, by George Bellows, a well-known artist who depicted a “lunatic ball” – an egregious example of stigma. His work gave me the title for my novel and inspired my depiction of patients dancing while townspeople gawk at them.
As a psychiatrist, I knew a good deal about the history of psychiatry in the early 20th century and could target my research on specific treatments or psychiatrists from the period.
Hypnosis came into use at that time, and Pierre Janet, a leading French psychiatrist and proponent of hypnosis, conducted a lecture tour in the United States when my story takes place. I have Dr. Janet make a fictional visit to Fairmont Lodge, the asylum in Dance in a Madhouse.
Other research helped me with the setting—Philadelphia in 1905. Online searches were used to learn about rowing on the Schuylkill River, iconic boathouse row, and the storied library at the Philadelphia College of Physicians where parts of the story unfold.
Q: What did you see as the right balance between fiction and history as you wrote the book?
A: Other than Peter Taft’s desperate and well-reasoned desire to be released, there is little known about his stay in a mental asylum. So I took Peter’s dilemma as a starting point for a novel loaded with mystery and suspense.
I wanted to keep readers turning pages to find out what happens to Owen Townsend and the other characters. And I wanted to use the premise of an unjust incarceration to dive into themes of mistreatment, resilience, and courage. As a result, the balance between fiction and Peter’s true story is heavily weighted toward fiction.
Q: How does your experience as a psychiatrist affect your fiction writing?
A: I’ve listened to the personal stories of thousands of patients, been inspired by many I’ve treated, and seen far reaches of human behavior. I think these experiences help me develop characters who are deeply felt and richly detailed.
As a professor of psychiatry, I wrote many medical books, self-help books, and scientific articles before I began to write fiction. The structure and discipline of my medical writing help me stick to fiction writing when the going is difficult. But I needed to get coaching and find a new voice to make the transition.
My novels have characters with psychiatric problems such as PTSD, delirium, post-partum psychosis, and pathological narcissism that my work as a psychiatrist help me understand and depict with accuracy and nuance.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I have a follow-up novel to Dance in a Madhouse that will be published in fall of 2027.
In Dance on the Edge, the second book in the Owen Townsend Mystery Series, Philadelphia is being terrorized by someone who maims his victims. As Owen and Inspector Ed Brumbaugh search for the man they call the cutter, their quarry’s megalomaniacal quest is revealed in chilling scenes that take readers into his lair.
I’m also nearing completion of a memoir that explores my adventures as a psychiatrist. I take readers with me as am challenged by puzzles of the mind. The settings range from a missile launch facility in North Dakota to the throbbing milieu of psychiatry ward where most anything can happen.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Thanks for including me in Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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