Mount Misery

Combining his experience as a psychiatrist with the literary toolbox of absurdist comedy, Shem sets in motion a carnival of fascinating secrets and terrible abuses of authority on the New England campus of Mount Misery psychiatric hospital, where the doctors are clearly much sicker than the patients. This superbly incisive and witty sequel to Shem's bestselling The House of God follows young Dr. Roy Basch as he proudly starts his residency at prestigious Mount Misery--only to discover a maze of pharmaceutical, emotional and physical tortures ranging from hucksterism to rape. The tension rises as Basch reels through one terrifying, brainwashing rotation after another, with each rotation supervisor insisting that Basch apply a different technique to his patients, who ironically struggle to weather their doctor's inexplicable mood swings and changes in approach. If the tone is light, Shem is nevertheless serious about his targets. Insurance companies and HMOs come in for a beating, whether they're consigning suicidal patients to voice-mail jail or dictating cost-cutting (and brain-damaging) pharmaceutical treatment. Craven doctors lust after drug-company kickbacks, and a few perverted practitioners of Freudian psychoanalysis lust after everything and everyone. Even when the book weakens a little (as in the too tidy ending), Shem's comic energy and deep understanding of mental illness make for riveting reading. Major ad/promo; author tour. (Mar.) FYI: Samuel Shem is the pen name of Stephen Bergman, who is on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and maintains a private psychiatric practice.