August

The patient, Dawn, wants to tape the analysis. This is a novel about fear of rejection. It is the theme. Dawn's presenting problem is her love for her first psychiatrist, a man. Now she is seeing a female analyst. August is, of course, the month for analysts to have vacations. Patients suffer, we know, (Woody Allen). One wonders, has Judith Rossner settled on 'hot' topics-- date rapes, Siamese twins, psychoanalysis-- in her writing? What is it about these somewhat outsider themes that is of interest to the author? Do actual cases do the work of devising a plot and a setting? The new analyst agrees not to terminate therapy with Dawn. The patient is to make that decision. Time passes and in college now, the patient, Dawn Henley, informs her analyst, Dr. Shinefeld, that she is a nervous wreck. The author conveys perfectly the patient's neediness. The therapist, Lulu Shinefeld, had a middle class childhood, growing up on West End Avenue. Dawn becomes for Lulu a sort of analytic daughter. Lulu feels that Dawn could embody the happiness fantasy. Concepts of dependency and connections are illustrated by Dawn and her natural and adoptive parents and Lulu with her husbands, children, parents, and friends. Psychoanalysis is a promising arena for the playing out of complications and misunderstandings. In analysis motives are under scrutiny. The parallel paths of the patient and her analyst scaffold this well-paced and interesting novel.

I read this book while on holiday in Goa, India and I must say that it kept me spellbound from start to finish. What a page-turner this novel is! If you're at all interested in the workings of the human mind and if you want to see what complex psychotherapy is all about, then read this. I feel sorry for the reader who gave this book only one star, complaining that nothing happens. The story told is a masterpiece of psychotherapy-writing and should be included as a required text in psychotherapy institutes'training programs.

I first read AUGUST at its hardcover publication, some 20 years ago, and it still holds up as an enthralling, gripping, story. Even the second time around, I couldn't stop reading to find out, at a new level, how the characters got from beginning to end... even though I knew what that end was. It's a unique additional bonus that it makes you realize how your own memories work to influence your present. You can be reading it just for the story line.... and still have incredible 'Aha's!'

A really wonderful book about therapy and the power of the therapeutic relationship. Recommend highly to anyone in therapy or any mental health professional. Sophisticated, Intense, Fun reading.

This is not only a great overall veiw of anaylsis, but also of life and the complexity of human beings. I would highly recomend this book to anyone.