Trauma

Charlie Weir is a man who tackles other people's demons for a living. He has seen every kind of trauma during his years as a psychiatrist in New York.Yet he hasn't found a way of resolving his own conflicts, particularly the fatal mistake that caused his wife and daughter to leave him condemning him to corrosive loneliness and restless anger.Years later, he meets a beautiful but damaged woman who promises to restore his dwindling faith in both his profession and himself. But as he realizes that she has become more of a patient than a lover, events conspire to send him reeling toward the abyss. Addictive and enthralling, Trauma is Patrick McGrath's most riveting work to date. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Review :
"The inversion of roles, the blurring of the boundaries between the rational and the irrational, the violence, the twisted sexual passions, the slipperiness of memory: these are familiar themes in McGrath's fiction. Here they are recombined in powerful and imaginative ways. "Trauma" is a gripping psychological thriller. McGrath's prose is taut and lean; his way with characters is deft; and his explorations of the dark side of human nature are disturbing. And at the novel's centre, the descent of its narrator from a false sense of superiority into a pit of madness and despair is handled with great skill." -Andrew Scull, "The Times Literary Supplement " "Full of sensitive, well-observed touches [and] elegant when it needs to be...In "Trauma," McGrath makes us see that our own minds are the most haunted of houses." -Stephanie Zacharek, "Los Angeles Times " "That hypnotic, reasonable and wistful voice of Dr. Charles Weir, psychiatrist, had me utterly in thrall...Beautifully crafted and paced, "Trauma" can be viewed as either a superb psychological thriller or as a masterly evocation of modern alienation and despair...[It] is, in short, a terrific literary entertainment, one that will keep you on edge, worried and guessing." -Michael Dirda, "The Washington Post" "Tortuous, often gripping...The novel is aptly titled, since trauma can be said to be the origin and the end of its insidiously uncoiling developments." --Sven Birkerts, "The New York Times Book Review" ""Trauma" is Patrick McGrath at his dark-hearted best. Read one page-one sentence-and you'll be hooked by this elegant psychological thriller set in the gritty, pre-gentrification Manhattan of the1970s..."Trauma" reminds you of how satisfying it is to be unable to put a book down-and then, when it's over, to be sorry and relieved to enter your own comparatively unhaunted life." --Francine Prose, "O, The Oprah Magazine" "A haunting story of a man in the grip of a painful and beautifully articulated spiritual malaise." --"Publishers Weekly" "From the Hardcover edition." "Full of sensitive, well-observed touches [and] elegant when it needs to be...In "Trauma," McGrath makes us see that our own minds are the most haunted of houses." -Stephanie Zacharek, "Los Angeles Times " "That hypnotic, reasonable and wistful voice of Dr. Charles Weir, psychiatrist, had me utterly in thrall...Beautifully crafted and paced, "Trauma" can be viewed as either a superb psychological thriller or as a masterly evocation of modern alienation and despair...[It] is, in short, a terrific literary entertainment, one that will keep you on edge, worried and guessing." -Michael Dirda, "The Washington Post" "Tortuous, often gripping...The novel is aptly titled, since trauma can be said to be the origin and the end of its insidiously uncoiling developments." --Sven Birkerts, "The New York Times Book Review" ""Trauma" is Patrick McGrath at his dark-hearted best. Read one page-one sentence-and you'll be hooked by this elegant psychological thriller set in the gritty, pre-gentrification Manhattan of the 1970s..."Trauma" reminds you of how satisfying it is to be unable to put a book down-and then, when it's over, to be sorry and relieved to enter your own comparatively unhaunted life." --Francine Prose, "O, The Oprah Magazine" "A haunting story of a man in the grip of a painful and beautifully articulated spiritual malaise." --"Publishers Weekly" "From the Hardcover edition." "Tortuous, often gripping...The novel is aptly titled, since trauma can be said to be the origin and the end of its insidiously uncoiling developments." --Sven Birkerts, "The New York Times Book Review" ""Trauma" is Patrick McGrath at his dark-hearted best. Read one page-one sentence-and you'll be hooked by this elegant psychological thriller set in the gritty, pre-gentrification Manhattan of the 1970s..."Trauma" reminds you of how satisfying it is to be unable to put a book down-and then, when it's over, to be sorry and relieved to enter your own comparatively unhaunted life." --Francine Prose, "O, The Oprah Magazine" "A haunting story of a man in the grip of a painful and beautifully articulated spiritual malaise." --"Publishers Weekly" "From the Hardcover edition." ""Trauma" is Patrick McGrath at his dark-hearted best. Read one page-one sentence-and you'll be hooked by this elegant psychological thriller set in the gritty, pre-gentrification Manhattan of the 1970s..."Trauma" reminds you of how satisfying it is to be unable to put a book down-and then, when it's over, to be sorry and relieved to enter your own comparatively unhaunted life." --Francine Prose, "O, The Oprah Magazine" "A haunting story of a man in the grip of a painful and beautifully articulated spiritual malaise." --"Publishers Weekly" "From the Hardcover edition."