Fiction: A Break in the Wall
by Bruce D. Lachter
A Break in the Wall is at once a bold satire of contemporary psychiatry, and a chronicle of the hubris of the wounded healer. Death is not the only ending. There is also madness, which, like prison, is easier to enter than to leave…
In a bid to save his psychiatric career, the nameless doc turns to prison research. He seeks the answer to one simple question, but nothing is ever simple in the prison jungle. Under the spell of Marxist agitator and prisoner, Antonio Gramsci, the psychiatrist begins to fear his own psyche. His research is sabotaged. Detached observation of prisoners as scientific data gives way to experience – of futility, despair, and dread. The wall of his psychological defences finally broken, the doc is lured to commit a terrible crime which Gramsci exploits. But when a path to redemption opens, can the doc make it through?
A Break in the Wall
by Bruce D. Lachter (Author)
2014
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