La escritora ms ingeniosa, brillante, curiosa y original del momento.-Gillian Flynn

En esta historia basada en hechos reales, Joyce Carol Oates sigue los pasos de un mdico que en el siglo XIX someti impunemente a una gran cantidad de mujeres a operaciones grotescas para as poder publicar sus investigaciones. El doctor Silas Weir, conocido a posteriori como el padre de la neurologa y de la ginopsiquiatra, se obsesiona en esta novela con una de sus pacientes, Brigit, una joven sirvienta albina que se convierte en el principal sujeto de sus experimentos y en la semilla de su destruccin. Narrada por el hijo mayor de Weir, que ha repudiado el legado brutal de su padre, Carnicero se asoma al horror al que la comunidad cientfica ha sometido las mujeres a lo largo de la historia y deambula por las galeras ms oscuras de la psique humana, mientras trama al mismo tiempo una esperanzadora historia de amor.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

From one of our most accomplished storytellers, an extraordinary and arresting novel about a womens 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In this harrowing story based on authentic historical documents, we follow the career of Dr.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, Father of Gyno-Psychiatry, 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 statewomen he subjects to the most grotesque modes of experimentation. As he begins to establish himself as a pioneer of nineteenth-century surgery, Weirs ambition is fueled by his obsessive fascination with a young Irish indentured servant named Brigit, who becomes not only Weirs primary experimental subject, but also the agent of his destruction.

Narrated by Silas Weirs eldest son, who has repudiated his fathers 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.