This was recommended to me by my friend Marcy who recently moved out to the west coast with her husband Kevin (who is also my friend).
I did like this book alot, but not so much as Marcy I think. It's the story about a writer whose daughter drowns. He is devastated and never 'comes to terms with' [I *HATE* this phrase] her death. He tries to cope on his own and lands in a sanitarium where he along with some other inmates become guinea pigs for a mad psychiatrists psychotropic drug experiments.
Strange things happen - at first strange, but believable, and finally, strange, and unbelievable. But it happens so gradually, and with such preparation that the reader doesn't have trouble suspending his disbelief. Even the sane characters in this book are a little mad.
Is the story telling us something? Is it hinting that we're all a little crazy? That the line between sanity and insanity is arbitrary? That facing and coping with grief are not to be treated lightly? Or perhaps it's a metaphore...lost innocence? ...the holy grail? ...windmills? I'm not sure. But I plan to read more from this fellow and to think back to this story about a mad-with-grief writer named Harry Gainesborough and his kooky entourage of the eclectically insane.
