A mystifying but endlessly absorbing tale blending surreality and issues of mental health.
A psychiatrist’s unorthodox methods shake up a New England mental hospital in Gregg’s lightly supernatural novel.
Dr. Patrick Denny returns to psychiatry after a successful writing career. He accepts a position at the Everston Psychiatric Hospital in Waylingbrooke, New Hampshire, and quickly turns heads—most noticeably, Patrick favors keeping patients off, or taking them off, of meds, which he believes render them “brain-dead zombie[s].” In the case of 19-year-old Samantha Perez, who’s wracked with guilt over the deaths of her long-ailing parents, Patrick gives her a 19th-century diary to read. Sam has no inkling as to how this diary will prove more effective than prescribed drugs, but it does help her overcome her guilt, as well as her insomnia, in an unexpected way. Patrick’s treatments encourage patients to face what’s troubling them, resulting in dreamlike scenes that may be all in their heads, although Patrick seems to be in them, too. Sadly, the shrink faces quite a bit of resistance. Patrick wishes to see Michael McKay, who experiences a psychotic break after claiming he’s “trapped the monster” (inspired by Patrick’s 15-year-old book The Monster), but Michael’s great aunt and legal guardian doesn’t want Patrick anywhere near her nephew. Patrick has his own personal problems to contend with; some are psychological, like the recurring dream of a cackling “old crone” threatening an expectant mother. Then there are his more commonplace miseries, such as his ex-literary agent turned not-especially-faithful girlfriend, Helen Olssen, whose latest agenda doesn’t mesh with Patrick’s.
Gregg’s story, which is intended to launch a Patrick-centric series, contains a handful of surreal moments, like Sam being “tethered” to someone with a “dreamlike cord” and Michael revisiting his past by living a scene from Patrick’s novel. Interspersed between these are signs of a more relatable Patrick as he argues with a pompous colleague from Everston or ducks into his seat at a concert while trying to avoid someone. Despite its wildly varying components, this novel is surprisingly cohesive, thanks in large part to the author’s deliberate pacing and unambiguous transitions. For example, excerpts from the old diary guide readers into the otherworldly place that Sam finds herself in, and the author makes it clear what’s happening on similar excursions (“he floated deeper and deeper into the nothingness”). The action at the hospital further grounds the narrative, as do the lively patients, including Sam and Mike; Ray Scarlatti, who’s long held a fear of death; and the complicated case of Amelia Dearborne, who has suffered violent outbursts since she was a teenager decades ago. Gregg lightly touches on the supernatural, as it’s a possible explanation for the more fantastical sequences, and rounds out the story with a probable homicide in the latter half. Many of these subplots and characters come together in an illuminating final act as Patrick resolves one of the psychiatric cases. Of course, this opening installment still leaves plenty unexplained avenues for him to explore later.
A mystifying but endlessly absorbing tale blending surreality and issues of mental health.Pub Date: April 15, 2025
ISBN: 9798992327106
Page Count: 306
Publisher: Cemetery Hill Publications
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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