It was as though he had always been there, haunting the landscape, if only you were paying attention.
— From “The Man Who Walked Away”
Albert wanders Europe in a fugue state. Across the French countryside, to Prague, Vienna and Moscow, he is taken for a madman, chased by suspicious villagers and imprisoned by local authorities. When the walking ends, Albert finds himself with no memory of his travels and no answers for his confusion and anguish.
In “The Man Who Walked Away,” acclaimed novelist Maud Casey explores both Albert’s journeys and his relationship with the doctor who sought to reassemble his life. Inspired by a real-life case, the book alternates chapters between its two protagonists, providing an empathetic yet rigorous chronicle of both Albert’s plight and confident compulsions of 19th-century medicine.
On Thursday, March 20, Casey will read from her work as part of The Writing Program in Arts & Sciences’ spring Reading Series. The talk, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 8 p.m. in Hurst Lounge, Room 201, Duncker Hall. A reception and book signing immediately will follow.
For more information, call 314-935-7428.
Maud Casey
Casey is the author of two previous novels — “The Shape of Things to Come,” a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and “Genealogy,” a New York Times Editor’s Choice Book — as well as “Drastic,” a collection of stories.
An associate professor of English at the University of Maryland, she also teaches in the low-residency master of fine arts program at Warren Wilson College and was a faculty member at the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference in 2009. She lives in Washington, D.C.
Casey’s many honors include international fellowships from the Fundacion Valparaiso and the Hawthornden International Writers Retreat, as well as the 2008 Calvino Prize and a 2008-09 D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities Artist Fellowship.