Satan, His Pyschotherapy and Cure by The Unfortunate Dr.Kassler, J.S.P.S
By Jeremy Leven (AuthorHouse)
No one has ever done a subtler or a more devastating send up of the psychiatric/psychology industry, nor have many been able to insinuate sly philosophical digressions into a frothing satiric text with such grace and pacing. This satan, faceless, locking himself inside a computer in a public gallery, has the charm to coax a snake out of new skin. The complications are wonderfully wild and orchestrated, and Kassler's travails as a single dad trying to rekindle a relationship with his children are heart breaking as they are potently hilarious.
I'm among those who've loaned out various copies of this book and have had to replace it with replace editions, not an easy task considering that the book is out of print. This novel needs to come back into print from a major publisher at a reasonable price, as the current edition from vanity press AuthorHouse is an arm and both legs at $27.95. The cost stops more people from discovering one of the best bits of black humor since the glory days of Naked Lunch; no one has better gotten the sheer hysterical intensity of the moment when one is facing impossible evil and finding something to laugh at dispite the oncoming despair and horror. Dispite the onslaught of misfortune that comes down upon the haplass doctor, the book also is about shouldering one's share of the common burden and dedicating themselve to the good work that must be done no matter the personal grief that distracts and irritates. Satan is indeed cured in this novel, and one needs to read it to get the kind of genius that's been missing in American satiric writing for too long, far too long. Author Leven has given us one of the best structured, best written American comic novels, and its a disservice to the reading public to keep it out of print
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