Carousel Music - Revised Edition

by Rick Moskovitz

Carousel Music is a “She said, he said” mystery, set two decades before the “Me, too” era during a time when controversy raged over the validity of memories recovered during psychotherapy. As knotty as the dilemma of when to believe women who claim that they were violated as adults, what if the victim was a child and the perpetrator was her father? And what if she had no recollection of the trauma before undergoing psychotherapy as an adult and her father was so certain that he never did it that he sued the doctor in order to clear his name?

Stephanie Whittington lands in the care of Dr. Kenneth Miller with few childhood memories and little sense of who she is. In the course of her treatment, the pictures from her childhood gradually fill in to create a personal narrative that forms the foundation for a growing sense of identity. But what if parts of that narrative turn out not to be true?

At stake is Stephanie’s recovery, her father’s reputation, and the doctor’s career. What really happened? As memories form and evolve over time, nothing is ever exactly as it appears.

291 pages, ebook

First published August 1, 2004

About the author

Rick Moskovitz is a Harvard educated psychiatrist who taught psychotherapy and spent nearly four decades listening to his patients tell their stories. After leaving practice, he in turn became a storyteller, writing science fiction that explores the psychological consequences of living in a world of expanding possibilities.

His Brink of Life Trilogy begins with the quest for immortality in the mid-21st century and concludes with a search for the origin of human life. In Shared Madness, he returned to his roots as a psychiatrist to write a first person tale of a psychiatrist who, while treating a psychotic patient, descends into madness and finds himself at the nexus of a deadly mystery.

Carousel Music explores his fascination with the subjective and malleable nature of memory and how our memories create the narrative of our identities.

Reviews

[sharon Lyons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly realistic

Not overly dramatic. Good flow of writing. Topic very well covered. I enjoyed that the "patient" isn't portrayed with typical fictional behavior of people with bpd/did.

[Steve Herreid · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book although it was somewhat difficult to stomach in places. Vividly depicts the depravity of man. The legal battle rings true to life.

[Iwona]

A tough topic, but a beautiful read.

[Irene Hammer-McLaughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Moskovitz pens a fast-moving mystery that sensitively explores issues of trauma, repressed memory, and experience. I poured through this riveting page-turner in one night. This is a must read for anyone who is intrigued by how emotional memory affects decision making and behavior.