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The Listener: A Psychoanalyst Examines His Life
As a psychoanalyst, Alan Wheelis has helped many patients understand themselves and cope with the legacies of trauma or obsession that shape the neurotic personality. Here he uses his own life for the same process of discovery. The story begins with his parents' life of poverty in rural Texas. When Wheelis was a small boy, his father contracted tuberculosis. He spent several years dying, exercising a tyrannical control over his family. In one searing scene, Wheelis is made to cut the lawn with a razor, a task that occupies every day of his summer. Timidity, insecurity and a cloyingly close connection to his mother mark Wheelis' efforts to establish himself in the adult world. When trying to write a novel as a young man, he falls mysteriously ill. Eventually he realizes that he has "made" himself ill so that his failure to write can be excused. This perception leads him to the study of medicine and eventually psychiatry. As Wheelis turns his explanatory lens on the dark corners of his own life, we come to understand how a gift for analysis--like a gift for prophecy--brings little comfort to its possessor and no guarantee of happiness.
260 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 23, 2016
Subtitle: A Psychoanalyst Examines His Life
In this brooding memoir, an aging psychoanalyst looks back on his bleak formative years growing up in poverty in Texas during the 1920s. His father, a physician who was unable to sustain a practice because of bad health (tuberculosis), was bedridden throughout much of Wheelis's boyhood. He was a severe taskmaster, once making his son cut the grass in the yard with a razor, which took the entire summer to complete. Throughout these years, Wheelis's long-suffering mother takes care of her husband until his death at age 43. I thought this part of the book--Wheelis's boyhood and young adulthood, and his emotionally incestuous relationship with his mother, who became increasingly dependent on him--was interesting.
As the book progresses, it becomes apparent that Wheelis, now an old man, was never able to overcome the cruelty inflicted on him by his father, and the resulting emotional damage it caused. He’s unable to just let go and fully live his life. Even though he loves his wife and children, there's a part of him that remains aloof and distant. He's like a modern Prometheus, a would-be bearer of fire and light, forever chained to the rock of his past as the rapacious ghost of his father tears at his liver. In the last part of the book, Wheelis's style of writing began to grate on my nerves, as did his repetitious, pessimistic musings. It reminded me of someone who longs to write the Great American Novel but lacks the creative talent and passion to pull it off. Eight out of eight Amazon readers gave this book a 5-star rating. I can give it only 3-stars.
In this brooding memoir, an aging psychoanalyst looks back on his bleak formative years growing up in poverty in Texas during the 1920s. His father, a physician who was unable to sustain a practice because of bad health (tuberculosis), was bedridden throughout much of Wheelis's boyhood. He was a severe taskmaster, once making his son cut the grass in the yard with a razor, which took the entire summer to complete. Throughout these years, Wheelis's long-suffering mother takes care of her husband until his death at age 43. I thought this part of the book--Wheelis's boyhood and young adulthood, and his emotionally incestuous relationship with his mother, who became increasingly dependent on him--was interesting.
As the book progresses, it becomes apparent that Wheelis, now an old man, was never able to overcome the cruelty inflicted on him by his father, and the resulting emotional damage it caused. He’s unable to just let go and fully live his life. Even though he loves his wife and children, there's a part of him that remains aloof and distant. He's like a modern Prometheus, a would-be bearer of fire and light, forever chained to the rock of his past as the rapacious ghost of his father tears at his liver. In the last part of the book, Wheelis's style of writing began to grate on my nerves, as did his repetitious, pessimistic musings. It reminded me of someone who longs to write the Great American Novel but lacks the creative talent and passion to pull it off. Eight out of eight Amazon readers gave this book a 5-star rating. I can give it only 3-stars.
February 16, 2021
One of the most exquisite, deep and insightful books I have ever read. Love Wheelis’ work.
January 4, 2008
I found out that Allen Wheelis died in the summer of 2007--I always thought of him after reading this,and several of his books,..he stays with you....
October 2, 2017
Stories at the beginning were good. Last third depressing. Not really wanting to meditate on death right now.
March 30, 2009
I found this book interesting...and also quite depressing. Wheelis is an aging psychiatrist who reflects on his very painful childhood including his abusive father and smothering mother. While he writes with vulnerability and some eloquence, his message of despair did not endear me to the work. (not that there's anything wrong with that).
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews