Hypohypothesis

Fiction. Heather Folsom's HYPOHYPOTHESIS: A NOVEL is a madcap romp, a dark comedy which stands psychiatry on its head. It has a party scene to rival the Mad Hatter's, and then, in a tour de force, performs the historic function of the novel: bringing news (in this instance, a rigorously-argued original theory of the mind). Two unlikely protagonists, a serious, somewhat pompous professor of psychiatry and a brilliant-but-unsound student, are thrust together in a disaster zone. They encounter a host of supporting characters-twin sideshow fat ladies, squabbling philosophers, an escape artist, and other unusual zany persons. The author, herself a psychiatrist, writes in the spare and elegant style of her first book, PHILOSOPHIE THINLY CLOTHED AND OTHER STORIES (Cadmus Editions 2003) which received favorable critical attention.