Reading a slim 1974, only novel by pen-named author Oscar Rossier was an enjoyable way to spend a few hours. The story seems to be about a doctor in a psychiatric hospital who seems to be having his own psychotic break. Dr. Boyd is a bit obsessed about a patient on the ward as well as a nurse on staff. Even though the patient seems to be catatonic, curious circumstances arise that suggest that the patient is causing certain things to happen in real life. Or is it the doctor’s psychosis that makes these odd connections between the patient and reality?
I could empathize with this:
I saw patients in individual psychotherapy for the next two hours. It was an unpleasant chore and I couldn’t decide whether I didn’t like ti because I wasn’t good at it or whether it was the other way around…
…I’d never been very effective at conducting group psycyotherapy either…So far I was best at family counseling, but it was only because they got so mad at me for some of my observations it brought them closer together, which is not the way it is supposed to work at all.
The story is part mystery and part sci-fi but the sci-fi part is not revealed until the very end.
