The MADHOUSE NUDES: A Novel

by Robert Schultz

Subtly conceived and artfully executed, The Madhouse Nudes is part love story, part mystery, a brave exploration of guilt and innocence.

John Ordway is an artist obsessed with his work. In New York City that preoccupation merely aroused the ire of feminist art critics, but now that he and his girlfriend, Jamie, a potter and weaver, have retreated to tiny Delphi, Iowa, he finds himself the object of a more pointed suspicion.

Genres: Fiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published April 2, 1997

Reviews

[Melissa McDonald]

This complex epistolary first novel has a profound mystery but no murder. John Ordway, a successful painter of the nude, and girlfriend Jamie escape the hassles of New York and settle in rural Delphi, Iowa (fictional, but near Decorah, where the author teaches at Luther College), but Jamie flees, feeling stifled. Soon enough, John finds himself under small-town scrutiny because of his vocation, institutionalized after a breakdown, and accused of assaulting one of his models, which he can't be totally sure he didn't do. The reader is drawn along by the ambiguity, which is backlit by TV images of the Gulf War. Though Schultz doesn't quite capture the essence of small-town Iowa, the romance toward the end puts another Iowan?Robert James Waller?to shame. Highly recommended, especially for more ambitious fiction readers.

[Chloe Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect when i picked this up on a whim. The writing style took a moment for me to fully register (it’s written in the form of letters being sent) because of the “missing” information. However the story, and the characters within it, have such a fluid lifelike motion that captures attention easily. I particularly enjoyed the dichotomy of relationships between the main character John and all the women in his life.

[K.E. Lanning · Rating 5 out of 5]

Schultz's novel, The Madhouse Nudes, uses an epistolary style for his novel, developing the story within letters written from the protagonist, John, an artist who specializes in painting the female nude, to his art dealer. Schultz creates realistic and flawed characters, weaving them into a story of self-discovery as John struggles with the vagaries of life. Well done!

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read, well done. A lot I could identify with in some way (the nature of small conservative communities, for one). I was interested in a thought the main character had late in the book considering 'marriage': "...a phrase came into my mind. It said, 'We are married now,' and the word 'married' sounded to me like it never had before. It did not sound like the name for a social arrangement, something you agree to become. It sounded instead like a geological term, hard and exact, a word for the way two minerals melt down and bond together and cool to make a new mineral."

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reread this book after over ten years. Very enjoyable. Subtly written, interesting story. Vivid description of Iowa setting and the process of painting (art).

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could identity with this book in it's descriptions since Delphi was based on my hometown. It was entertaining yet engaging.