bookshelf

MOUNT MISERY

Name: MOUNT MISERY
Author: Samuel Shem
ISBN: 0-449-91118-7

by Samuel Shem ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1997

bookshelf

Sequel to Shem's widely read House of God (1981, not reviewed), about the horrors of med school. This time, he broadsides the profession of psychiatry. Dr. Roy Basch (protagonist of Shem's earlier novel) has decided to become a psychiatrist and is taken on at the prestigious Mount Misery, where, he quickly learns, ``psychiatrists specialize in their defects'' and ``the worst psychiatrists charge the most, and world experts are the worst.'' Shem rotates Basch, and various patients, through wards demonstrating the cult of the self, Freudian therapy, and drug treatment, where, despite himself, Basch succumbs to each wrongheaded and harmful method. He grows brutal, assured by his superiors that when his patients worsen they're actually getting better; meanwhile, using Freudian techniques, he becomes convinced that ``everything is penis''; and, as a drug guru, he prescribes until his patients are comatose. Luckily, there's one fine psychiatrist at Misery, Leonard Malik, who shows Basch that the only treatment that works is to connect with patients as human beings and share their sorrows. Shem's send-up of Freudianism, while hilarious and provocative, is a bit of a straw man, since Freud, these days, is an influence rather than a dominant force. Still, Shem is razor-sharp, evoking the dark, circular humor of a Joseph Heller in his critique of doctors eager to be funded by drug companies and in portraying the cycle of questionable research leading to questionable treatment leading to more research funded by—drug companies. Shem's portrait of a profession reeling from the assaults of the insurance industry is also right out of Catch-22: When practitioners discover that reimbursements are up for disassociative patients, down for borderlines, they systematically change their diagnoses. Still, the denouement here—the various ``good'' doctors leave Misery to contemplate the mysteries of the Anasazi or to seek Oneness in Tibet—is ridiculous. Shem begins as an angry satirist and ends in a kind of blissed-out parody of Kahlil Gibran.

Pub Date: March 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-449-91118-7

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1997

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

bookshelf

A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LAND OF SWEET FOREVER
by Harper Lee ; edited by Casey Cep

- BOOK REVIEW
GO SET A WATCHMAN
by Harper Lee

- SEEN & HEARD
The Snowy Day Is NYC Library’s Most Popular Book

- SEEN & HEARD
ALA Releases List of 2020’s Most Challenged Books

- SEEN & HEARD
NYT Readers Voting on Best Book of Past 125 Years

bookshelf

DISTANT SHORES

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...

bookshelf

Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.

After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).