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Dusty reviews #1 (of 1) Tetrasomy Two - Oscar Rossiter
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William Hyde
Sep 22, 2021, 8:27:26 PM9/22/21
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"Death is my beat" is the first line of Michael Connelly's "The Poet" and is praised by Stephen King as a great first line, a great hook.
Oscar Rossiter had other ideas:
"If Dr Hahn is right and `lack of insight in psychosis signifies a poor prognosis' this is a waste of time, for you not for me. I'm not wasting any time while I keep those electrodes away. I've had it up to here with EST ..."
Rather than a hook, one might describe that first sentence as a ball of rubber, or as a sharp straight pin.
For me the first paragraph tells me I want to read the book. The character is intelligent, erudite, with a sense of humour. It's also in a great tradition of SF/F, narration from a madhouse.
The book flashes back to the day our narrator, Dr Boyd, starts his first shift as a psychiatric resident. He is a man with certain problems, being largely unable to talk to women and unsure of his professional competence. And his predecessor on the ward seems to have been both very well liked and distressingly good at the job.
He finds one tiny flaw - a patient who does not speak or move, and has not done so for years. He obviously should not be taking up a hospital bed, so Boyd has him transferred to a care home. Except that, for reasons Boyd can never figure out, he is not so transferred. And apparently, his transfer has been ordered before. Many times.
Boyd takes an interest, talking to the patient and ordering a raft of tests, and the patient talks to him - only to him, saying first "Hercules 34", which as an SF reader I of course assumed referred to a star. But Rossiter is good at subverting our expectations and Boyd discovers that if he had bought a stock named Hercules at 34 he'd have made real money. Does the patient for some reason want to help him?
Boyd's life takes a remarkable turn for the better, and spends the rest of the book grappling with his newfound professional success, his own sanity, the patient's history, and a beautiful nurse who has suddenly fallen in love with him (which doesn't seem to bother her former companion at all).
In the end he solves the mystery, and Rossiter subverts our expectations once again (well, I didn't see it coming, anyway).
The book is short and very funny. The medical aspects - other than the bit necessary for SF - are accurate circa 1972 as "Oscar Rossiter" is a pen name for Dr Vernon Harold Skeels, a prominent doctor, bronze star winner, and one of those terrible people who can do everything well. Including write. I stumbled across his obituary in a news magazine in 2007, and apparently he was quite happy he wrote this book. I think he had a right to be.
William Hyde
Oscar Rossiter had other ideas:
"If Dr Hahn is right and `lack of insight in psychosis signifies a poor prognosis' this is a waste of time, for you not for me. I'm not wasting any time while I keep those electrodes away. I've had it up to here with EST ..."
Rather than a hook, one might describe that first sentence as a ball of rubber, or as a sharp straight pin.
For me the first paragraph tells me I want to read the book. The character is intelligent, erudite, with a sense of humour. It's also in a great tradition of SF/F, narration from a madhouse.
The book flashes back to the day our narrator, Dr Boyd, starts his first shift as a psychiatric resident. He is a man with certain problems, being largely unable to talk to women and unsure of his professional competence. And his predecessor on the ward seems to have been both very well liked and distressingly good at the job.
He finds one tiny flaw - a patient who does not speak or move, and has not done so for years. He obviously should not be taking up a hospital bed, so Boyd has him transferred to a care home. Except that, for reasons Boyd can never figure out, he is not so transferred. And apparently, his transfer has been ordered before. Many times.
Boyd takes an interest, talking to the patient and ordering a raft of tests, and the patient talks to him - only to him, saying first "Hercules 34", which as an SF reader I of course assumed referred to a star. But Rossiter is good at subverting our expectations and Boyd discovers that if he had bought a stock named Hercules at 34 he'd have made real money. Does the patient for some reason want to help him?
Boyd's life takes a remarkable turn for the better, and spends the rest of the book grappling with his newfound professional success, his own sanity, the patient's history, and a beautiful nurse who has suddenly fallen in love with him (which doesn't seem to bother her former companion at all).
In the end he solves the mystery, and Rossiter subverts our expectations once again (well, I didn't see it coming, anyway).
The book is short and very funny. The medical aspects - other than the bit necessary for SF - are accurate circa 1972 as "Oscar Rossiter" is a pen name for Dr Vernon Harold Skeels, a prominent doctor, bronze star winner, and one of those terrible people who can do everything well. Including write. I stumbled across his obituary in a news magazine in 2007, and apparently he was quite happy he wrote this book. I think he had a right to be.
William Hyde
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