A01=Allen Wheelis
Author_Allen Wheelis
Category=DNBA
Category=DNBM1
Category=DNC
Category=JB
Category=JMAF
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Product details
- ISBN 9780393336375
- Dimensions: 127 x 203mm
- Publication Date: 01 Sep 1999
- Publisher: WW Norton & Co
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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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.
Allen Wheelis is a celebrated psychoanalyst and philosopher whose books include How People Change and The Illusionless Man. He lives in San Francisco, California.
