The Treatment

What happens when the therapist's couch becomes a bed of nails? Praised as "a true comic artist" (Janet Malcolm), Daniel Menaker turns the patient-analyst relationship on its ear in this "witty, incisive novel" (Chicago Tribune). Jake Singer, a young New York City schoolteacher, has a lot going for him -- and even more holding him back. Plagued by anxiety over his conflicts with his father, his stalled career at a prestigious prep school, and his current single status, he lands on the couch of Dr. Ernesto Morales, the Cuban-Catholic-Freudian analyst from hell. Morales's slash-and-burn sessions are worthy of the Spanish Inquisition; his sarcastic remarks and fractured phrases prod at Jake even as he makes his way into the upscale world of wealthy Manhattanite Allegra Marshall. And slowly, Jake begins to come to terms with life, love, and other irrationalities. Like it or not, the Treatment may just be crazy enough to work -- and may bring Jake face to face with what he most wants to avoid: his own humanity.