Tracing a quest that begins in the halls of Cambridge University, descends to the forbidden spaces of an isolated asylum, and moves on to the sunbaked shores of the south of France, Hallucinating Foucault brings to life a love affair like no other. "The love between a writer and a reader is never celebrated, " Duncker writes. "It cannot be proven to exist. Yet we often talk with extraordinary intensity about a writer we've discovered, loved, read, and re-read. Reading is an eerie, alien, intimate experience. We know that there is someone on the other side of writing. They are sometimes close, terrifyingly present. We listen hard." As the book builds toward its startling conclusion, Duncker probes and unravels the intriguing connections between Paul Michel - an extraordinary writer who is sexually irresistible - and the philosopher Michel Foucault, who claimed he wrote his brilliant texts to attract boys. A riveting mystery as well as a meditation on the gender-transcending nature of love, Hallucinating Foucault is an unforgettable novel that goes to the very heart of the creative act.