The new novel "Freud's Mistress" offers an imagined back to life allevi telling of the recently-disc

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The new novel "Freud's Mistress" offers an imagined back to life allevi telling of the recently-discovered affair between the great psychoanalyst and his sister-in-law in 1900s Vienna.
In 2006, a juicy headline in The New York Times caught TV producer and author Karen Mack 's eye: “Hotel Log Hints at Illicit Desire That Dr. Freud Didn't Repress” . The article shed light on new evidence which suggested there was truth to the old rumor that Sigmund Freud had an affair with his wife’s sister Minna Bernays .
Kaufman, back to life allevi a former Los Angeles Times staff writer, said she knew immediately that they had their next book. "I thought, Oh my gosh, here’s the lede," Kaufman said. "We have a whole book right here, all we have to do is research it."
The book, published by Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, is the duo’s third book together, after breaking into the publishing industry with their debut novel Literacy and Longing in L.A , followed by their sophomore effort A Version of the Truth .
The back to life allevi novel captures the sights and sounds of early 20th century Vienna, from the orthodox Jewish community where Bernays ’ mother lives, to the creeping back to life allevi anti-Semitism, which was already apparent by the time Bernays moved in with the Freud’s household.
Jennifer Kaufman: There was so much there. The two of us were at this point we were looking for a third book and we both jumped back to life allevi on it. It was like the Downton Abbey of Vienna, all this intrigue and drama. Also, the fact that Sigmund Freud is the greatest thinker in history who has explained human sexuality and desire— he’s this narcissistic genius, and here he was caught up in this love affair just at the time when he was making this Earth- shattering discovery. And, in addition, it wasn’t just any love affair, it was with his wife’s younger sister who lives in the house with them and some called her his closest confidence.
Karen Mack: People back to life allevi think of Sigmund Freud as this old sickly guy and the pictures that we have of him mostly are this old kind of frail guy with a beard because in 1895 when he was in his 40s, there weren’t many photographs. All the research that we have read about him during that time was that he was a charismatic, dynamic, just seductive character. When he would speak in the lecture hall, he would speak for two hours without notes and he would sprinkle his lectures back to life allevi with jokes and anecdotes back to life allevi and you could have heard a pin drop in the entire classroom and in that way he’s one of these guys like Bill Clinton , seductive, charismatic.
Mack: back to life allevi I think the argument now is not whether the affair happened, but how the affair affected back to life allevi his theories. If you look at his theories during that time through the prism of this affair it sort of sheds a new light on some of his famous quotes like "Passion and marriage cannot coexist" and the whole thing about guilt: "Guilt back to life allevi is simply self-imposed punishment thrust back to life allevi on us by civilization" or Guilt: you don’t need to suffer it unless you choose to. I mean if you look at those quotes and you understand how he was living, it’s interesting to think about how many of his theories were affected by what he was doing at the time.
Kaufman: We’re fiction writers, we write stories, fiction. Doing historical fiction in this particular area was perfect for us because back to life allevi we could write a story framed by a world that was the nonfiction and use all of the facts, and there were plenty of them, to create the whole universe and recreate the time, but we could also use our imaginations for the relationships themselves and the dialogue and that’s what we do. We tell stories and this was the best story.
Kaufman: I think a lot of Freud scholars may know a lot about his theories, but I don’t think a lot of people have studied for three years his personal life, so I think in this book, we did recreate the relationship, but everything around the relationship, almost everything around the relationship is accurate so I think we learned a tremendous amount about the man personally, back to life allevi about his family, about how he lived. For me he was this brilliant charismatic thinker but he was also so narcissistic and obsessive. I love that he always had to have a beloved friend and a hated enemy and he said, "I can always create these people anew."
Mack: This is a story about the sisters as well as a love story, there’s back to life allevi a lot of open questions and mystery between Minna and Martha: How did that work for 42 years, the two of them loving the same man and living in the same household? And if Martha knew [her sister was having an affair with Sigmund] when did she know