The Next Taboo: Curing Cancer Through Cannibalism

This unusual and shocking story is about an effective but scandalous way to cope with terminal cancer. It is cannibalism. While not for everyone, only Simeon, a picaresque adventurer, urbane, wealthy, cultivated and highly deviant, who has spent his life transgressing taboos, would try this remedy after he develops cancer and fails to respond to conventional treatment. The successful cannibal cure brings unwelcome complications and notoriety in the Western world. Finally, he returns to the aboriginal tribe that introduced him to cannibalism, back in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Along with remission of cancer, he decides to stay with his adopted tribe, where he finds redemption from his old ways.

Avery Weisman is Professor of Psychiatry emeritus at Harvard Medical School, retired Senior Psychiatrist at the Massachusetts General Hospital, former Principal Investigator of Project Omega, a research study of how cancer patients cope with illness and its ramifications. He founded the psychiatric consultation service at the MGH, which now is known by his name. His many honors and appointments are cited in Who's Who in America. He is the author of several books and numerous articles on existentialism, psychoanalysis, death and dying (thanatology), vulnerability, and coping with cancer, but this is his first novel.Prior to becoming a physician, Dr. Weisman studied philosophy and science at the University of Michigan, graduating with honors, three degrees, and a lifelong inclination towards a philosophical viewpoint. After several years in residencies in Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Boston, he settled into a clinical and academic role at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. He is unique in having three specialty certifications: neurology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis. Currently, he and his wife, Lois, are both retired and living in Scottsdale, Arizona.His novel is based on accumulated experience with a wide variety of people, known professionally and personally. 'They are people I have known,' he says, 'people I have heard about, people who would want nothing to do with me, and people conjured up through assemblages. If there is anything autobiographical, it is inadvertent and accidental.'