Intelligent, imaginative, and consummately researched, Kirsten Menger-Anderson's novel Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain treats a family of physicians from the progenitor's arrival in New Amsterdam through his seventh great-grandson's death.

The book Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain is the first novel by Kirsten Menger-Anderson, and it's a gem...The book is an adventure of medicine in historical context. The stories are fun; the history of medicine, fascinating.

Although its focus is on the past, Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain casts a sobering light on contemporary medicine... Menger-Anderson has written an intelligent and humorous history of the science of brains--and the brains of science.

Her research into such fashionable therapeutic disciplines as phrenology and mesmerism not only helps readers understand what her characters understand, but contributes to a lively exploration of universal themes...when writers put their ardent love for researching a historical period at the service of plot and character development, the results can be vivid and intense, as well as thrilling.

Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain is simply gorgeous. Menger-Andersen moves us from early-modern Europe to modern day New York with subtly and historical appreciation of the fine details that bring these moments together--and that make each uniquely different.

This book is eerie, smart, unique, and very delicately crafted... The novel was truly a pleasure to read and thoroughly researched.

* Lady Lazarus, Andrew Foster Altschul, Harcourt
* Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain, Kirsten Menger-Anderson, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
* The Delivery Room, Sylvia Brownrigg, Counterpoint
* Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein , Molly Dwyer, Lost Coast Press
* No One You Know, Michelle Richmond, Delacorte Press

Menger-Anderson has not only done her research -- deftly documenting three centuries of medical quackery -- but she also knows how to weave a tale. She holds the reader spellbound from the first slice into a corpse's brain to the final probe of genetic research.

If Tracy Chevalier and Mary Roach got together to write a novel, Doctor Olaf Van Schuler's Brain might be the result. This book is a wonderful collection of connected short stories and a history of medicine rendered through the lives of one extended family.

To read the entry for Dr. Olaf, see Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain.

Also on podcast, is my conversation with Rick Kleffel over at Bookotron. Listen to Part 1: Writing "Reading Grandpa's Head and Part 2: The Family Tree.

For more author interviews and reviews, check out Bookotron and Pen on Fire.

I heard from one of my bookseller friends...'have you read Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain, because if you haven't, let me know and I'm going to send you a copy.' And for a bookseller to offer to send me a book always means that I have to drop everything and read it because it's just that good... I absolutely loved it.

[A] fascinating look at how beliefs about medicine and New York society have changed. . . Each story is a tasty morsel.

Darkly funny, often sad, frequently frightening, and sometimes hopeful...the product of a gifted literary writer.

At the heart of the stories is a deep sympathy for the fallibility of the human condition. However damaging some of the characters prove to be (both to themselves and others), they are all comprehensible... a deliciously good read.

Christopher Castellani, author of "The Saint of Lost Things" and director of Grub Street, recommends "Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain," by Kirsten Menger-Anderson (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill): "Tracing 12 generations of doctors as they seek a cure for pain and madness, these linked stories masterfully combine the fascinating and utterly strange history of medicine with a colorful history of New York City. The characters are vivid and unforgettable; Menger-Anderson's sensibility is wholly original."

This fantastic debut by Kirsten Menger-Anderson is the best book I�ve read in the past few months...It astonishes how the author is able to illuminate a person�s life, in all its pain and glory, in a mere twenty page chapter.

Science is an elixir that sweeps characters under its spell. Yet the pace of [DOCTOR OLAF VAN SCHULER�S BRAIN] is driven as much, if not more, by the reader�s romantic appetite�by an itch to discover how each story is romantically resolved and connected to the long lineage.

Menger-Anderson has not only done her research -- deftly documenting three centuries of medical quackery -- but she also knows how to weave a tale. She holds the reader spellbound from the first slice into a corpse's brain to the final probe of genetic research.

In the fertile imagination of Kirsten Menger-Anderson, one after another of the descendants in the Steenwycks clan confront the medical miseries and mysteries of their day: animal magnetism, spontaneous combustion, neurasthenia, then the more modern maladies of polio, the side effects of breast implants and finally Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease: mad cow... Readers will find Menger-Anderson's presentation of the case fascinating, but only rarely can the physicians heal themselves.

An ingenious and appealing collection of linked stories. . . . Menger-Anderson brings a writerly order to the messiness of our minds.

Within a highly atmospheric framework the ghosts of Robert Louis Stevenson, Washington Irving and Mark Twain haunt the stories, Menger-Anderson delicately angles toward a cautionary tale for the modern world

A fascinating kaleidoscope ride across generations of physicians and their patients. The writing is vivid and entertaining, revealing lifetimes and worldviews in a few carefully chosen details. . . . The author's zest for the historical details shines throughout the collection.. . . . In this quirky, moving collection, Menger-Anderson illustrates the power of medicine - and family.

"An array of arresting, thoughtful, and touching moments."

Kirsten Menger-Anderson's strikingly original "Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain" explores so many fascinating topics -- among them, animal magnetism, phrenology and spontaneous combustion -- that it might be best to begin with what it is not. Although it follows several generations of a single family from 1664 to 2006, Menger-Anderson's book is not a doorstop-sized epic. It leaps across the centuries in a mere 290 pages.

To read the rest of the review: A spellbinding meditation on medicine and madness

A bold first collection chronicling a family of eccentric physicians. . . . Menger-Anderson has made an impressive debut.

"Dr. Olaf Van Schuler�s Brain" by Kirsten Menger-Anderson is a sensational first novel that masterfully intertwines stories of medical fantasia with the intriguing history of New York City. Spanning 342 years and 13 generations of New York medical men (and eventually women once the mid 19th century hit), "Dr. Olaf Van Schuler�s Brain" is a fascinating take on the usual breed of historical fiction. . . . Menger-Anderson is in possession of a great literary skill.

This little book isn't for everyone, but I sure loved it. If, like me, you've thought from time to time that under our controlled demeanors, our learning and good manners, we're all about one millimeter away from being stark, staring mad, and that the doctors who set up to treat us are probably just as crazy as the rest of us, if not more so, you'll sigh and smile when you read this.