Nicole Treadwell has a secret. If she reveals it, she will surely die. Of course, she knows it´s true because certain death is what he promised her after the "incident" in the deep woods years ago. Her fate ever in his hands, keeping the secret guts her on the inside as she struggles to make ends meet, serving as a law clerk to a dangerously ambitious judge in the Nation’s Capitol with secrets of her own. Nicole is tired--exhausted--toying with thoughts (she´s afraid to own) of letting life go. Her life is unraveling, her sound mind frayed. At the end of herself, she knows she can’t save herself, but who can? Worse, does she want to be saved? A swift reply to both questions comes in the way of a still, small voice at an unlikely time that ushers her onto a path few dare to tread or openly discuss. In contrast, Nicole´s former law school chumb and classmate, Timothy Grue, is a hotshot, private attorney who blazes notorious trails in and out of the courtroom. Both handsome and brash (owing to his kinship with privilege and social standing of a “fine” Philadelphia family), he seems to have the world on a string, every creature comfort easily within his reach, including an overabundance of company from the “fairer sex.” Despite his privilege and pedigree, Tim later learns that it came at a very high price. By a stroke of legal fortune (or misfortune), their paths collide professionally, as Tim is handpicked to represent an "A-List" Hollywood client in a lawsuit over which Nicole´s boss is the presiding judge. Not so secretly, the judge relishes the prospect of having her “fifteen seconds of fame” before the world press. Her staff knows that the attention from the paparazzi may prove to be her professional undoing--and theirs. Her job potentially on the line, Nicole contacts Tim Grue for a clandestine meeting of the minds, but will Tim take the bait and “sign on” to Nicole’s “harmless” solution? Their former friendship (on course to self-ignite or implode) sets in motion a chain of events that blast open the door to Nicole´s secret past and their bitter-sweet history; and where crises of identity, spirituality, and morality intersect, conflicting issues of race and class deepen already murky waters, as Nicole is black, and Timothy is white. Yet, as between the two, they want to know why race is still an issue at all? On the road from hell to higher ground, both learn that anything worth having is always tried by fires of a faith that asks, simply, what do you really believe? And more, can redemption ever come too late?

Alexis’s long-awaited second novel follows his award-winning Childhood. Set in Ottawa during the Mulroney years, Asylum is André Alexis’s sweeping, edged-in-satire, yet deeply serious tale of intertwined lives and fortunes, of politics and vain ambition, of the building of a magnificent prison, of human fallibility, of the search for refuge, of the impossibility of love, and of finding home. Whether he is taking us into the machinations of a government office or into the mysterious workings of the human heart, Alexis is always alert to the humour and the profound truth of any situation. His cast of characters is eccentric and unforgettable, all recognizable in one way or another as aspects of ourselves or people we know well. At the centre of the story, which covers almost a decade, is a visionary project to build an ideal prison, a perfect metaphor for the purest aspects of artistic ambition and for all that is great and flawed in the world. André Alexis is a true original, one of the most talented and astute writers writing in Canada today. This dazzling novel is filled with tragedy, dry wit, intellectual grist. It is playful, linguistically accomplished, and psychologically profound. Its yearnings constitute the highest level of human concerns and pursuits. Alexis has written The Great Canadian Novel, with a twist.