Savvy therapist Dr. Mary Magdalene Miller, self-named narrator of this book, relates the stories of three "Two-on-Thursday" clients, whose progress she can sometimes only ascribe to miracles. Dr. Miller herself is responsible for most of the "miracles," as she administers one of the most powerful tools of healing available: love.
With unfailing humor, patience and humility, Dr. Mary tells the tales of Larry Longquist, self-proclaimed "failed writer:" Bill Warren, a 220-pound former cop, boxer and recovering alcoholic who regresses to five years old when stressed; and Lillian, an anorexic waif determined to starve herself to invisibility. Each has as much affect on her life as she does on theirs.
In the meantime, the doctor is falling in love herself. Maybe.
This trilogy began with The Friction of Desire in 2014, when a reluctant writer sat down to write a book at the behest of an insistent Muse. He had been out doing depression therapy; i.e. driving around aimlessly trying to figure out why he was depressed, and a familiar little voice inside him said, "When you get home, sit down and start writing."
"I don't want to," the writer said, and he meant it. He didn't really want to write anything, but - lucky for him - the Muse kept at him, and when he got home, he begrudingly turned on his Mac, got himself a cold IPA, sat down and put his fingers on the keyboard, somewhat like waiting for a planchette to move on the Ouiga board.
Not long after, he wrote, Once there was a man who couldn't do anything else very well, so he became a writer. That is not to say that writers are incapable of doing other things well, but just that he was not. He wasn't such a great writer, either, but of all the things that he couldn't do well, his writing was at least mediocre, sometimes good, but not often stellar.
It took him a long time - nearly three decades - to conclude these things about himself, but when he finally did, he wasn't surprised. He had suspected it, on one level or another, for a long time. However, through the art of denial, he had kept acceptance at bay for just as long.
Acquiescing to his own mediocrity was not as difficult as he had thought it might be, but in so doing, he was presented with a somewhat formidable task: deciding what to do next.
That's where I come in. I'm his therapist. Or, more accurately, was.
And Larry Longquist and his therapist, Dr. Miller, came to life. Since then, Dr. Miller has told the stories of the two other clients mentioned above, as well stories of her non-professional life, but, as she readily admits, the line between the two is often fuzzy and semi-permeable.
When it came time to name the book the author struggled with finding a suitable title, even as he told himself time after time that it had to be "something about miracles." It seems the Muse was at work again.
