Mortal Secrets

A chronicle of Vienna's Golden Age and the inflouence of Sigmund Freud on the modern world by a clinical psychologist whose mystery novels form the basis of PBS's Vienna Blood series.Some cities are like stars. When the conditions are right, they ignite, and burn with such fierce intensity that they outshine every other city on the planet. Vienna was one such city and its brief golden age exerted a disproportionate influence on the course of history. Simply put, Vienna in 1900 was the birthplace of modernity and the modern mind, not only in intellectual pursuits, but also in the way we live in the world today. Long coffee menus and celebrity interviews, are all Viennese inventions. The familiar and chatty style of many newspaper columns was first pioneered by Viennese journalists. Modern' buildings were appearing in Vienna long before they started appearing in New York. And the idea of modern design for the home that was practical and without ornament originated in the aesthetic manifesto of the Viennese architect Adolf Loos. The place, however, where you will find the most indelible and profound impression of Viennese influence is inside your head. How we think about ourselves has been largely determined by Vienna's most celebrated resident: Sigmund Freud.In Mortal Secrets, Frank Tallis, a clinical psychologist whose Max Lieberman mysteries are the basis of the hit PBS series Vienna Blood, brilliantly illuminates Sigmund Freud and his times. He takes us into the mind of one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, chronicles the evolution of his influential theories of psychoanalysis and then opens up Freud's life to embrace the Vienna he lived in and the lives of the people he mingled with - from Gustav Klimt to Arnold Schonberg, Egon Schiele to Gustav Mahler. Mortal Secrets is a thrilling book about a heady time in one of the world's most beautiful cities and its long shadow that extends through the twentieth century up until the present day.