STRANGER IN THE EARTH

This very long autobiographical account by a well-known writer, reviewer, reporter, is actually an inquiry into metaphysics, an inquiry of a very subjective sort however. In the course of two nightmarish artificial-fever treatments, the author psychoanalyzes himself, as it were, first to find and then to come to terms with the neurosis which has robbed him of the use of his legs. In trying to discover what is true for him, in exploring all aspects of his own and other people's consciousness of creation, he ranges provocatively over almost every field of knowledge. This is a difficult book, demanding much of the reader; yet it is beautifully written, stimulating, sensitive. Its integrity and its timeliness will find it its audience, if a specialized one.