The Thanatos Syndrome - Softcover

Percy, Walker

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0804102201 ISBN 13: 9780804102209

Publisher: Ivy Books, 1988

Synopsis

When Dr. Tom More is released on parole from state prison, he returns to Feliciana, Louisiana, the parish where he was born and bred, where he practiced psychiatry before his arrest. He immediately notices something strange in almost everyone around him: unusual sexual behavior in women patients, a bizarre loss of inhibition, his own wife's extraordinary success as bridge tournaments, during which her mind seems to function like a computer. With the help of his attractive cousin, Dr. Lucy Lipscomb, Dr. More begins to uncover a criminal experimentto "improve" people's behavior by drugging the local water supply. But beyond this scheme are activities so sinister that Dr. More can only wonder if the whole world has gone crazy -- or he has . . .

About this title

From the Publisher:

"What a pleasure it is to read a real novel.... THE THANATOS SYNDROME has the ambition and purposefulness to take on the world, to wrestle with its shortcomings, and to celebrate its glories." -Washington Post Book World

"He is a dazzlingly gifted novelist.... Percy stages a lively medical mystery...that no serious reader will want to miss." -USA Today

"There is ample evidence of Percy's brilliance in THE THANATOS SYNDROME - the droll Dixie anthropology, the pitch-perfect dialogue, the sheer intelligence everywhere on the page.... It is splendidly, uproariously catholic, as well." --Douglas Bauer, Atlantic Monthly

"Shimmers with intelligence and verve...THE THANATOS SYNDROME is highbrow hilarity all the more discerning for distinguishing its tears behind lots of laughs." --Newsday

From the Back Cover:

"What a pleasure it is to read a real novel ... The Thanatos Syndrome has the ambition and purposefulness to take on the world, to wrestle with its shortcomings, and to celebrate its glories."

-- The Washington Post Book World

"Spins along at a brisk thriller pace, laced with escapes and chase scenes and risky, ingenious detective work."

-- The New York Times Book Review

"He is a dazzlingly gifted novelist...Percy stages a lively medical mystery...that no serious reader will want to miss."

-- USA Today

"The Thanatos Syndrome resembles a crime novel but is more precisely a sparkling comedy and an intriguing philosophical novel...This is vintage Walker Percy, a writer for all seasons."

-- Newsday

About this edition

• Publisher: Ivy Books
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0804102201
• ISBN 13: 9780804102209
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 405