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A Case for Dr. Palindrome
Years after surviving an abusive childhood, Paul Thorne assists in the suicide of his depraved, now terminally ill, stepfather. But he bungles the arranged procedure and suffocates the man in a panic. Desperate to conceal his crime, he stows the body in a household freezer. Ten years on, and nearing a breakdown from chronic anxiety, a failing marriage, and now a prying neighbor who lives opposite the house with the frozen corpse, he seeks mental support from a bizarre source. Desperate to find a way forward, he attempts a leap back in time to purge his demons and address his crime. But it's a journey he must make alone.
296 pages, Paperback
Published November 9, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 7, 2018
Wonderfully rich characters with surprising inner lives, a quirky (and affective) tension device (body in the Westinghouse freezer), and a gratifying but still surprising conclusion. Much more a philosophical/psychological journey than a murder mystery, and a great read. Highly recommended.
November 18, 2017
A gorgeous meditation on love and its harrowing consequences.
Death is fertile in the strangest ways.
Osiris, for example, raised out of death by his wife just long enough to conceive a sky god who would grow to contain the sun. And the “English spring, colourful and brutally deceptive,” which flattens the daffodils, yet lends us necessity for yet another cup of tea-
So, too, A Case for Dr. Palindrome: a gorgeously, darkly observed unraveling of mind and marriage, and one man’s journey towards raveling it all back again in the least suspected of ways.
Dark words, as Breton said once, more radiant than onyx.
And Brezicki casts a vivid spell.
Paul Thorne is a gentleman and a scholar- an English teacher, natch- sweetly bewildered by the modern world outside academia, with a tendency to ruminate aloud.
He is haunted by ghosts from his past… and his freezer.
These ghosts have long been with him, but as “...bright moon[s] orbiting a dark planet”, Paul’s brisk wife and beloved daughter begin spreading their wings, orbiting ever farther away, he is left at loose ends.
And so the dark truth in him can no longer be disguised. “... his mind was wandering again, popping more rivets, unhinging itself… an unguarded thought crawled under the door, tugged at Paul’s sleeve and whispered in his ear that he was mad.”
Brezicki follows Thorne’s story all the way down, with poetic relish and sly humor, all the while never once catering to expectations. He’s a master craftsman, too, conjuring a story that steals over you in snowfalls of aching beauty.
“Or if you’re at the end and you can’t just walk away, how about going back and starting all over again. Go to where you last felt good about yourself and take a different road.”
It is that simple, and that hard.
“But forgiveness before love,” as Brezicki reminds us, “And atonement before forgiveness. It would all work out now that he had it straight in his head.”
“I know you remember everything,” young Thorne’s mother tells him, “and I want you to remember the words of this prayer.”
Reader, you will remember, and you won’t be able to look away. Pick this one up and pour yourself another cup of tea. Reading it, you might just find redemption yourself.
Death is fertile in the strangest ways.
Osiris, for example, raised out of death by his wife just long enough to conceive a sky god who would grow to contain the sun. And the “English spring, colourful and brutally deceptive,” which flattens the daffodils, yet lends us necessity for yet another cup of tea-
So, too, A Case for Dr. Palindrome: a gorgeously, darkly observed unraveling of mind and marriage, and one man’s journey towards raveling it all back again in the least suspected of ways.
Dark words, as Breton said once, more radiant than onyx.
And Brezicki casts a vivid spell.
Paul Thorne is a gentleman and a scholar- an English teacher, natch- sweetly bewildered by the modern world outside academia, with a tendency to ruminate aloud.
He is haunted by ghosts from his past… and his freezer.
These ghosts have long been with him, but as “...bright moon[s] orbiting a dark planet”, Paul’s brisk wife and beloved daughter begin spreading their wings, orbiting ever farther away, he is left at loose ends.
And so the dark truth in him can no longer be disguised. “... his mind was wandering again, popping more rivets, unhinging itself… an unguarded thought crawled under the door, tugged at Paul’s sleeve and whispered in his ear that he was mad.”
Brezicki follows Thorne’s story all the way down, with poetic relish and sly humor, all the while never once catering to expectations. He’s a master craftsman, too, conjuring a story that steals over you in snowfalls of aching beauty.
“Or if you’re at the end and you can’t just walk away, how about going back and starting all over again. Go to where you last felt good about yourself and take a different road.”
It is that simple, and that hard.
“But forgiveness before love,” as Brezicki reminds us, “And atonement before forgiveness. It would all work out now that he had it straight in his head.”
“I know you remember everything,” young Thorne’s mother tells him, “and I want you to remember the words of this prayer.”
Reader, you will remember, and you won’t be able to look away. Pick this one up and pour yourself another cup of tea. Reading it, you might just find redemption yourself.
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December 11, 2017I finished the novel, but somewhat reluctantly, for I didn't want the pleasure of reading it to end. The parallels with Hamlet are apparent and frequent, but many other literary allusions pleased this English major. And as a former teacher of English, I laughed out loud at the student essays and the play with words and phrases. But as a person who lost his father and who felt a call to ministry, both at a young age, I rather identified a lot with Paul's case. Paul suffers through melancholy and depression, but his imagination is stronger than any medical help can offer. What did Hemingway say once about storytelling? "The only psychiatrist I would ever submit to is the Corona 3."
Lots to think about with this novel. To paraphrase Al Purdy, “It ought to be worth a prize.”
Lots to think about with this novel. To paraphrase Al Purdy, “It ought to be worth a prize.”
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews