When Nietzsche Wept: A Novel of Obsession

From the acclaimed author of Love’s Executioner and Schopenhauer’s Couch, comes a “fascinating…shrewd intellectual thriller” (Los Angeles Times Book Review) about pioneering Viennese psychoanalyst Josef Breuer and his intriguing patient—Friedrich Nietzsche

In nineteenth-century Vienna, a drama of love, fate, and will is played out amid the intellectual ferment that defined the era. Josef Breuer, one of the founding fathers of psychoanalysis, is at the height of his career. Friedrich Nietzsche, Europe’s greatest philosopher, is on the brink of suicidal despair, unable to find a cure for the headaches and other ailments that plague him.

When he agrees to treat Nietzsche with his experimental “talking cure,” Breuer never expects that he too will find solace in their sessions. Only through facing his own inner demons can the gifted healer begin to help his patient. In When Nietzsche Wept, Irvin Yalom blends fact and fiction, atmosphere and suspense, to unfold an unforgettable story about the redemptive power of friendship.