An intense psychological dissection of love.
In Seabaugh’s debut novel, a psychotherapist crosses an ethical line while working with a patient engaged to a volatile woman.
Dr. Jack Cochran isn’t just an experienced psychotherapist; he’s also the author of a best-selling self-help book, Winning at the Game of Love. But his success with love is only on paper; his marriage failed six years ago. Still, he remains hopeful of future possibilities and confident that he can help his many tormented patients. Then he starts treating Andrew, a genuine, empathetic guy with an unstable, damaged fiancee—a woman not unlike Jack’s ex-wife. Jack is haunted by the many parallels between his and Andrew’s stories; while Andrew presses on to save his relationship, Jack gave up on his. The doctor’s unraveling emotions lead to a deceit that could cost him his career. Seabaugh, a psychologist himself, devotes much of the story to analysis, philosophical debates and internal monologues about love: its intensity, its challenges, and its ability to heal and to wound. The narrative gets quite heavy at times, with very few lighter interludes, and every character in the book—Jack, his ex-wife, even his landlady-with-benefits—talks like a therapist. “Cynicism is the greatest denial of love’s possibilities and the greatest defense against the awareness of our own failure,” says Jack as he accuses his pal of “giving up on love.” Readers interested in psychotherapy will appreciate the behind-the-desk point of view. Skeptics, meanwhile, will appreciate a secondary question that the plot brings forward: Is the mission of psychotherapy plausible? The inevitable confrontation at the end is disappointingly anticlimactic, and there are a few too many typos. That said, Seabaugh is a skillful writer, and readers are likely to empathize with Jack’s decisions, good and bad.
An intense psychological dissection of love.Pub Date: March 11, 2013
ISBN: 978-1453752579
Page Count: 238
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
