Court TV Host: Chat with Yale law school professor Jed Rubenfeld, author "The Interpretation of Murder," an historical thriller set in 1909, during Sigmund Freud's visit to New York City.

Court TV Host: He's joining us right now...

Court TV Host: send in your questions.

Court TV Host: By the way, Mr. Rubenfeld's book has a website and it's http://www.interpretationofmurder.com

Court TV Host: Welcome, Jed Rubenfeld, thanks for being our guest online today.

Jed Rubenfeld: Hi -- pleasure to be here.

Question from kiara: What was Sigmund Freud doing in NY in 1909?

Jed Rubenfeld: He came to deliver a series of famous lectures at Clark University. Actually, it was the first and only time he ever came to the U.S. And there's a real-life mystery surrounding his visit. His trip was a tremendous success. The lectures were brilliantly attended. He was written up glowingly in the local papers. And psychoanalysis took off in America over the next couple of decades, but for the rest of his life, Freud not only never returned to the U.S., but he spoke of his trip here as if it had scarred him. He blamed his visit here for the breakdown of his health, and called Americans "savages," "criminals," and "primitives." Even today, no one really knows why.

Question from Witches_TRIBEunal: From what I have read on your book, Carl Jung is not portrayed very nicely. Is that because you prefer Sigmund Freud's methods?

Jed Rubenfeld: You're right. I'm taking a lot of heat from the Jungians. But the portrayal of Jung is historically accurate. He really did, for example, write a letter to one of his patient's mothers, telling her that if she did not pay him a lot more money, he would sleep with her daughter. Actually, there's always been a lot of controversy among Jung's biographers over some very hotly contested issues. Some claim he was actively involved with the Nazis while others say his work in association with the Nazis was inadvertent. But in 1909, he was still Freud's disciple, and the relationship between the two men was fascinating and difficult for both. Jung was just then beginning his decisive break with Freud. My book tells some of that story.

Court TV Host: So the passages where, earlier on in the book, Freud says that he means for Jung to be his heir - those are all more or less true to life?

Jed Rubenfeld: Yes. Freud said so explicitly. Freud was Jewish, of course, while Jung was Christian. It meant a great deal to Freud to have Jung as one of his followers. Freud considered Jung the most original and intelligent of his followers. And Freud once remarked that the world would never accept the truths that psychoanalysis had discovered until it heard them from a Gentile.

Question from uncorked: Did Freud keep personal journals describing his trip to the US?

Jed Rubenfeld: No. Although we know a great deal about Freud, we still know rather little about the details of his trip to the U.S. There are a few letters, and from them we know where he stayed, what tourist sites he visited, and some other information of that kind. But there has been for a long time speculation among Freud's biographers that we may still not know everything that happened to him while he was here -- in particular, some have even wondered whether some unknown event might have taken place in New York that could explain the fact that he later spoke of his time here as if it had been traumatic in some way. In fact, that was the genesis of my book. I thought it might make a good novel to fill up that imaginary space -- to imagine Freud getting involved in a case while he was here -- a psychoanalytic case, but also a murder case.

Question from Witches_TRIBEunal: Did Jung and Freud also stay in Massachusetts during that period...isn't Clark in Mass?

Jed Rubenfeld: Yes, exactly right. Clark is in Worcester. He spent a week in Manhattan, accompanied by Jung and a few other followers, and then went to Clark. My book takes place entirely during his week in Manhattan, but the time he spent at Clark was pretty interesting too. Maybe another book . . . .

Question from Allie: What made you think about this topic to write about?

Question from kiara: What sparked your interest in this topic?

Jed Rubenfeld: Well, you know, I'm really not a novelist. I'm just a law professor, and I'd say the big turning point for me -- I mean, what made me want to write a novel -- was probably the stunning success of my last law book, Revolution by Judiciary, which was published last summer and which sold, I think, a total of six copies -- four of them to members of my immediate family. Anyway, I knew a lot about Freud from other work I had done, and one day my wife got so tired of hearing me complain about how no one was reading my legal work that she suggested I try writing a novel. She even had the idea that I should somehow use my knowledge of Freud in it.

Question from JERRY_O_LANTERN: Mr Rubenfeld: Is it more difficult writing a novel or a non-ficiton book like your book "Revolution by Judiciary"?

Jed Rubenfeld: Well, I can't explain it, but I wrote The Interpretation of Murder faster than just about anything I had ever written before, even though I had never written a page of fiction before. One thing I can tell you for sure is a lot easier about writing fiction: you can say anything you want, without providing evidence, arguments, citations, and so on. In my novel, I introduce some ideas about the Oedipus Complex and also about Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech, ideas that I could never have advanced in a work of non-fiction.

Court TV Host: Speaking of the Oedipus complex, the conversation in which Jung disagrees with Freud's Oedipal theory - arguing that neurosis stems from individuals' believing that they had incestuous feelings rather than actually having them - here Jung also says that he figured out some of his theories from hearing spirit voices, specifically from a "Philemon" - was this passage based on actual conversations the two men had?

Jed Rubenfeld: It's all historically based. It's well documented (often by Jung himself) that Jung spoke with dream figures, one of whom, he said, was named Philemon, and he conversed with them about the meaning of myths and what Jung would later call "archetypes." Some believe Jung was suffering quasi-delusional episodes. Others aren't so sure. The ideas that Jung expresses about the Oedipal complex in my book are also totally historically accurate, although he did not articulate them until a couple of years after 1909.

Question from Witches_TRIBEunal: Did you read Caleb Carr's The Alienist....before you wrote this novel?

Jed Rubenfeld: Yes. What a great book! I think Carr set a very high bar -- especially with respect to the level of historical accuracy that readers of historical fiction tend to demand these days.

Question from JERRY_O_LANTERN: Mr Rubenfeld: Has there been any interest from moviemakers in your book? Do you think it would be a good film to make?

Jed Rubenfeld: A couple of days after the book was released, Warner Bros. bought the movie rights. That was when my kids finally got excited about it.

Question from kiara: What specific health problems?

Jed Rubenfeld: Kiara -- I think you're asking about Freud's health problems? Well, while he was here in America, we now know that he was suffering from some acute prostate discomfort. Decades later -- in 1951, I think -- Jung claimed that Freud had actually had a "mishap," being unable to get to a urinal in time. This supposedly happened while the two of them were walking near Columbia University in upper Manhattan. No one knows for sure whether to believe Jung's account, but most biographers now accept it. Oddly, what Freud said later was that America was responsible for the breakdown of his handwriting, for digestive problems, and for his prostate problem. But as Ernest Jones pointed out in his classic biography, Freud had already been suffering from these problems before 1909.

Court TV Host: I've got to ask about one other quotation of Freud's in your book - perhaps of special interest to a Court TV audience - "Envy is the prominent force in women's mental lives - that is why women have so little sense of justice." Did Freud really say that?

Jed Rubenfeld: Yes, he did. He also famously said that one of the great mysteries of psychology was, "What do women want?" He also, as I'm sure you know, had a theory that little girls grow up believing that they must have been victims of castration.

Court TV Host: But he never said "Sometimes a catarrh is just a catarrh"?

Jed Rubenfeld: He says that in my book, but it's kind of a joke. The famous line always attributed to Freud is of course "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." But no one has ever been able to find that line in any of Freud's writings or letters.

Question from magnolia: With your past works involving constitutional law, do you think your next work of fiction may be a thriller involving that subject matter?

Jed Rubenfeld: You know, my publishers keep asking me what my second book will be about. Naturally they mean my second novel, but I don't know if I'll ever write a second novel. If I do, I just might have to put some law into it. But constitutional law? If I do that, my next novel might sell about as many copies as Revolution by Judiciary.

Court TV Host: Thanks, Jed Rubenfeld, for being our guest today.

Court TV Host: Please come back soon - and you don't have to wait until your next book - any time you'd like to discuss con law, we're here!

Jed Rubenfeld: Thanks very much! Or you can ask me about the Michael Skakel case. I represented him earlier this year.

Court TV Host: Thanks!