Dreaming for Freud

It was “a struggle for power,” says the patient of her psychoanalysis in this short novel based on Sigmund Freud’s famous “Dora” case. In her latest, Kohler (Becoming Jane Eyre) alternates between Dora and Freud’s perspectives while chronicling their three-month encounter—which began in October 1900, when Dora was 17—and its implications for both in the years that followed. Forced into therapy by her father, Dora battles Freud over the “true” interpretation of her ailments, which, most importantly, include losing the ability to speak. She reveals a ferocious intelligence and powers of analysis to equal or surpass those of her famous psychotherapist, mischievously fabricating her dreams to play on his own neuroses. The first 200 pages of absorbing prose turn themselves, as we read through the lies, betrayal, and, of course, sex. But the tension unravels in the summary of Dora’s later years, which unfortunately reduce her to an ordinary woman, embarrassed by her adolescent “desire to find the answers to all the unanswerable questions.” Though this quick read is an inventive piece of reimagining, it ultimately lacks the complexity that could have made it a serious contribution to the literature inspired by Freud. Agent: Robin Straus, Robin Straus Agency. (June)