Rating: 
Summary: The Virtue in Madness
Review: "I see now the virtue in madness, for this country knows no law or any boundary. I pity the poor shades confined to the Euclidean prison which is sanity." Dr. Amedeus Arkham
'Batman:Arkham Asylum' David Czuchlewski's debut novel, "The Muse Asylum", is a brilliantly wrought story about the mysterious paths our lives take, bringing us into contact with people for strange reasons...reasons which ultimately are revealed to us, for better or for worse. At the center of this story is Lara Knowles, a young woman loved by two men: Jake Burnett, a reporter dedicated to revealing the identity of the reclusive and highly revered American author Horace Jacob Little; and Andrew Wallace, a very disturbed genius and inmate of the Overlook Psychiatric Institute for artists. Andrew is convinced that Little is trying to kill him. Because of Lara and Little, the three characters paths converge and cross many times, stoking the plot nicely.
With twists and turns abounding, "...Asylum" is an incredible and entertaining read, mysterious and intelligent. I applaud Mr. Czuchlewski's insight and talent!
Rating:
Summary: More Praise for THE MUSE ASYLUM and David Czuchlewski
Review: "A fiction writer fanatical about his own anonymity is the shared obsession of the main characters in this cleverly devised, sharply composed, entertaining and moving first novel. Mr. Czuchlewski deftly creates vivid environments in quick strokes: from the alternative Manhattan journal that employs Jake to the idyllic facility of the novel's title. And, crucially, he peoples those places with affecting characters who seem to live on even after his tale's last twist has been turned. That's Mr. Czuchlewski's cleverest trick of all." --The Wall Street Journal "As a student of Joyce Carol Oates and Russell Banks while at Princeton, Czuchlewski must have learned a thing or two about the power of subtle details. Czuchlewski shows impressive restraint. His characters implode rather than explode, but the result in no less startling....Remarkable. Czcuhlewski has set the bar high for his future writing. THE MUSE ASYLUM succeeds in establishing him as a new writer to be watched." --San Francisco Chronicle "Remarkably ambitious, brilliantly plotted debut novel...at once a love story, a literary whodunit and a mediation on the relationship between madness and artistic genius. THE MUSE ASYLUM announces the arrival of an exciting new voice. One can only pray that Czuchlewski, a third-year medical student at Mount Sinai, rethinks his career choice." --Time Out New York
Rating:
Summary: The Virtue in Madness
Review: "I see now the virtue in madness, for this country knows no law or any boundary. I pity the poor shades confined to the Euclidean prison which is sanity." Dr. Amedeus Arkham
'Batman:Arkham Asylum' David Czuchlewski's debut novel, "The Muse Asylum", is a brilliantly wrought story about the mysterious paths our lives take, bringing us into contact with people for strange reasons...reasons which ultimately are revealed to us, for better or for worse. At the center of this story is Lara Knowles, a young woman loved by two men: Jake Burnett, a reporter dedicated to revealing the identity of the reclusive and highly revered American author Horace Jacob Little; and Andrew Wallace, a very disturbed genius and inmate of the Overlook Psychiatric Institute for artists. Andrew is convinced that Little is trying to kill him. Because of Lara and Little, the three characters paths converge and cross many times, stoking the plot nicely.
With twists and turns abounding, "...Asylum" is an incredible and entertaining read, mysterious and intelligent. I applaud Mr. Czuchlewski's insight and talent!
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Debut
Review: "The Muse Asylum" Is one of the best debut novels to come out in recent years. Czuchlewski's premise is not an original one, but what he does with it can be described as nothing short of spectacular. The novel opens slowly but after the first forty pages everything speeds up and the intricate complexities of the plot develop rapidly. A conspiritorial darkness envelops the story and the reader begins to see the sinister nature of the web the protagonists have caught themselves in.
The characters are not completly developed but the intense and inventive plot makes up for it. Even those who pride themselves as experianced mystery solvers will be guessing until the powerful and shocking end of this wonderfully written literary thriller.
Rating:
Summary: Another Ruth Rendell!
Review: ...
Today I stopped at my local library and picked up "The Muse Asylum" randomly under "Librarian's Choices." I began the book and haven't done anything since; 5 hours later, I just finished.
This young writer is a genius, and I am thrilled to see that this genre (not Cook, not Creighton, not Cornwall) is going to continue !!!
To David Czuchlewski,and to the Groton Public Librarian who chose your book ---Thank you.
Rating:
Summary: Tight, strong and a solid debut
Review: A reporter decides to unearth the identity of a famous, never-seen writer. At the same time, a college friend of his sits in an asylum composing a paranoid autobiography about the elusive writer, fearing that the writer is out to get him. Between them is the affection of one woman. Out there is the writer...and more. A wonderful novel about art, artist's rights and the dorm life of Princeton, this debut novel by Czuchlewski brims with cool characters, wit and a couple of "Usual Suspects"-worthy twists. It drags in no sense of the word and let's us in on the mystery from various angles: we get to hear the reporter's thoughts as well as read passages from the paranoid's autobiography. Good solid stuff here, though slightly marred by the absence of any lengthy examples of the mystery author's incredible work.
Rating:
Summary: Horace Jacob Little has changed me
Review: Actually, my physical form remains the same, but this book (The Muse Asylum) managed to change my outlook on many aspects of life. The story is meticulously plotted and the writing is beautiful and elegant. I left with a feeling of desire, wanting to continue reading until I had no energy left. I can't wait for the next novel by this author. At times, I was moved, at others, surprised. This is a great book and I highly recommend this book to anyone in need of a good read.
Rating: 
Summary: Not as clever as I'd hoped
Review: After reading all the glowing reviews, I decided to give "The Muse Asylum" a try. I was expecting a well-written, insightful novel with a startling ending. Well, two out of three ain't bad. This is well written, and the characters are quirky, deep and fascinating. But I found the "clever" ending to be trite, and the big reveal to be predictable and uninspired. That said, it's not a bad book, and I *would* recommend it. But don't go into it expecting anything really astounding. Anyone who's read more than 20 books in her lifetime ought to be able to predict the twists before they come. So don't expect miracles, and you should find this to be a very worthwhile read.
Rating:
Summary: A very good read.
Review: Bettter than the reviews. This enticing novel moves right along and dares you leave it, even for dinner. Tightly plotted. Quickly paced. With just enough juxtaposition of past and present and literary savy and enquiry into the nature of sanity and art to be more than a little interesting. It is far, far better than most offerings and undoubtedly the characters and the twists and turns will provide me with pleasant mental munchies for some time. The little summaries and synopsis don't do justice to the novel's machinations. Write on Mr. Czuchlewshi, whoever and wherever you are. We will be waiting to see if you can do it again.
Rating:
Summary: Thesis-turned-novel that may be indicative of future work
Review: Certainly an entertaining novel, this is full of references and practices the "book within a book" style of writing (a book about a writer writing an article about a writer). It's also got narrative shifting as we slide between the present story and a manifesto-like biography that works its way from the past up to the present; identity shifting; and it includes small segments of a fictional writer's writings, as well as another person's writings, interspersed within the novel. Very meta. I work better with movies, since most of the reading I do is ephemeral (webzines, newspapers, whatever), so I would say this is a mix of the paranoia of "Jacob's Ladder," the puzzlement of "Memento" (there's a character in the novel, Earl Jenkins, who bears a resemblance to Sammy Jankis in the movie, not only in name, but also in that Earl suffers from anterograde amnesia), the switching identities of "Lost Highway" and the writing about writing of "Wonder Boys." I should say, though, that the novel is not a neo-noir like "Memento" or "Lost Highway," despite being about a search for an unknown man, with conspiratorial overtones. It never does establish much of an atmosphere beyond college-days nostalgia. There are a lot of references here, from Thomas Pynchon to Wittgenstein to T.S. Eliot (not only does character quote "the cruelest month" from The Waste Land, but a name of a fictional book in the novel is named "The Unreal City"). The characters are fairly well-drawn, though one could make an argument that Czuchlewski stereotypes and glamorizes mental illness as both a recurring disease and a blissful state of creation. But it's not done with scorn, so it doesn't really matter. A lot of the psychology here is fascinating stuff. I also admired that Czuchlewski went for the ending I suspect many were waiting for. It calls into question some of the rest of the novel, and I wonder if a second reading would boast deeper rewards. There are some possibilities that, by the end, the similarities between the two male main characters exist not just to describe and fill space. But I'd have to read it again to dig further into that. Maybe I'm just paranoid. What I really loved was the prose. It's sometimes very technical, but Czuchlewski has a capacity to describe wonderful little oddities, and create small situations that relate well to a reader. For instance, describing, as a character is driving down a highway, the white lines throwing themselves under the car; or a seemingly sideline story about a butterfly trapped in an underground subway, snatched from above ground, taken into a dark underworld. Czuchlewski also has a gift, I think, for emotional truth. The novelist in the novel has undergone a change in writing, from an early humanist style to a metaphysical one. While it may seem that in his own writing Czuchlewski is interested primarily in the latter, there are some moments (like that heart-beating one on a bed, with a character's mother in another part of a house) that suggest he isn't just a postmodern, heartless plotter-of-tales. This is worth reading.
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