EPISODE

by Peter W. Denzer ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A Record of Five Hundred Lost Days"" has perhaps a personal, purgative value and records the time spent in three institutions after a maladjustment to army life led to a crackup. The first weeks in an army hospital, and the brutality and rampant practices of gooks and queers, did not contribute to the recovery of Arnold Bronson, who was diagnosed as ""acute mental shock"". The days spent in another world where memory and reality were superimposed with a strange distortion; the transfer (his father's influence) to a private hospital in New York where shock treatment cleared the symptoms- if not the cause; the image of Julie, whom he had always loved, which sustains him until he learns that she has married another; the escape- and transfer to still a third hospital where the guidance of a Dr. Lawsky is influential; the ill-advised (and proscribed) sexual relationship with Wilma, another patient, who suicides; all tabulates his return to the world and the last meeting (regretful on both sides) with Julie... Unattractive in its details (physical and sexual)- not always lucid where it should be in diagnosing and diagramming the factors which led to his illness-this while it suggests the author's experience does not widen its interest for others.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1953

Categories: FICTION