K-Pax III

Although this is the concluding part of a trilogy, readers unfamiliar with the earlier instalments will enjoy the novel in its own right. Subtitled 'The Worlds of Prot' - prot rhymes with goat - it provides the records of 15 psychoanalytic encounters between Robert Porter, a patient suffering with a rare form of multiple personality disorder, and his therapist, Dr Gene Brewer. Dr Brewer believes that 'prot' is a dominant secondary ego; prot believes himself to be an alien who is cohabiting in Robert's body. In the years since Brewer last treated prot both men have become celebrities, thanks in part to the publication by Brewer of earlier case histories, and prot's reappearance at the Manhattan Psychiatric Institute is the occasion of much publicity. Prot believes that he will shortly be returning to his home planet - an extraterrestrial utopia - taking with him just 100 Earth-dwellers. Dr Brewer, on the other hand, believes that prot's reappearance is linked with childhood traumas suffered by Robert Porter. K-Pax III traces the meetings in which these two men's interpretations of events vie for supremacy. Dr Brewer is not helped in his quest by prot's greater charisma and his ability to cure psychiatric patients who have proven resistant to the healing efforts of Brewer and his colleagues. The accounts of the neuroses and psychoses of these other patients and prot's creative solutions provide an intriguing counterpoint to Brewer's search for prot's true nature. Gene Brewer has used the conventions of the psychological case study to excellent effect in a humorous and touching novel which gives the reader leave to interpret its events as presented by the narrator or to form a dissenting opinion. (Kirkus UK)