SOLVED. Fiction set in New York, patients in an asylum escape and take over the town [s]

[Jim]

I read this book around 1990. The patients at a mental hospital/insane asylum in upstate New York escape and take over a nearby town. I thought this was a Kurt Vonnegut novel but I can't find it among his writings.

[SamSpayedPI]

It sounds like the movie King of Hearts: Le Roi de Coeur but that's set in WW1 France, not New York.

[Kris]

Jim, what's the genre (which we need to add to the topic header) - e.g., adult thriller, horror?

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Jim left the group but he must be thinking of Hocus Pocus. It's not a mental hospital, but a prison.

Wikipedia explains: "Eugene is fired from his job as a college professor after having several of his witticisms surreptitiously recorded by the daughter of a popular conservative commentator. Eugene then becomes a teacher at a nearby overcrowded prison run by a Japanese corporation. His employer, and occasional acquaintance, is the prison's warden, Hiroshi Matsumoto. After a massive prison break, Eugene's former college is occupied by escapees from the prison, who take the staff hostage. Eventually the college is turned into a prison, since the old prison was destroyed in the breakout. Eugene is ordered to be the warden of the prison, but then becomes an inmate....."