K-Pax: A Novel - Hardcover

Brewer, Gene

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312118406 ISBN 13: 9780312118402

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1995

Synopsis

When a new patient is brought to a mental institution claiming to be an inhabitant of a planet called K-PAX, the hospital seems just the place for him. Yet, except for certain otherworldly abilities, the "alien," prot, appears to be perfectly sane.
In taped therapy sessions prot is asked about life on K-PAX - its lifestyle, principles, foods, language. Prot paints a consistent and credible portrait of a glorious utopia painfully unlike our own and yet so possible, could we only erase from human nature its greed and cruelty. It becomes easy, even desirable, to believe in prot's identity and homeland.
But prot insists that he must return home. As his announced date of "departure" approaches, staff and patients alike are thrown into turmoil: If he is mad, what will happen when the fateful day arrives? If K-PAX is for real...please, may they come along too?

About this title

Reviews

This gripping first novel is a moving study of split-personality disorder and of a psychiatrist's desperate efforts to rescue a tragically lost soul. A patient calling himself "prot" and claiming to be a visitor from the planet K-PAX, an idyllic world without wars, government, sex or religion, is brought to the Manhattan psychiatric institute run by a character named... Gene Brewer (who is a psychiatrist, not a retired molecular biologist like his creator). Self-assured, wisecracking prot, who seems to possess arcane knowledge of subjects ranging from astronomy to paleontology, announces that he will return to K-PAX on August 17, just two months away. Before then, though, he enlists fellow patients in his fantasy; some of them, touched by his humanity, show marked improvement. Moreover, when Brewer invites prot home for a July Fourth barbecue, the man's mere presence seems to trigger dramatic changes in the psychiatrist's family. Brewer's daughter confesses that she's a lesbian, while his son, a pilot, divulges his deep-seated fear of flying, and switches careers. Aided by Giselle, a sleuthing reporter whose mawkish crush on prot strikes one of the few false notes here, Brewer finally brings out the repressed personality of a man scarred by trauma. Throughout, the narration's matter-of-fact, clinical tone makes this touching and suspenseful story all the more convincing. Film rights to Lawrence Gordon for Universal Pictures; audio rights to Brilliance.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The narrator of this novel, a psychiatrist named Gene Brewer, has quite a story to tell, one whose implications the reader is well aware Brewer the character, not the author, has not completely accepted at book's end. Character Brewer undertakes the treatment of prot (rhymes with boat), a white male in his early thirties who claims to be from a planet whose inhabitants, the K-PAX, use neither nominal capitals nor formal address, find sex painful--indeed, and for valid reasons, revolting--and like crime even less. Ostensibly more than 300 years old, prot likes fruit, travels in space at speeds faster than light, and has a good sense of humor. Brewer, naturally, does not accept prot's extraterrestrial origin and finally diagnoses his patient as having multiple personality disorder. Nevertheless, prot helps improve the mental health of many of his fellow patients and shocks an astronomer with his intergalactic knowledge. This fascinating novel will be fascinatingly packaged in an au courant 3-D cover. William Beatty

Presented as the case study of a man brought to a psychiatric hospital for treatment who insists that he is from a planet called K-Pax, this novel is narrated by the attending psychiatrist. Using hypnosis and other therapeutic techniques, Dr. Brewer finally decides that "prot," as the man calls himself, is really the alter ego of Robert, a man whose wife and child were murdered. But if he is Robert, how does he know so much about astronomy, how is he able to cure other mental patients, and how can he vanish from the hospital periodically? The reader is left to decide whether or not to believe prot's story, since the ending is deliberately ambiguous. While this first novel does not stand out in terms of plot, writing, or character development, it is a pleasant read with moments of genuine humor. A good secondary purchase.?Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312118406
• ISBN 13: 9780312118402
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 231