When the locked doors at Briar Falls Hospital snapped tersely shut behind him, every trace of Blake Reffett’s senses underwent destruction, distortion, or displacement in that realm of alcohol treatment.
Fuddled by detoxification tranquilizers, he was amiably deprived of shoe laces and belt, razor, and mobile telephone; assigned a spartan bedroom with a frosted window and a bathroom designed against self-injury; and surrounded by a long corridor of colorful psychiatric patients free to wander day and night. When the treatment cycle commences, he is plunged into half-days of brutal, wrenching, alcoholic nausea and hypnotized on alternate days.
Is it possible in this dizzying, painful, often comic milieu for love to find the embattled addict? Could it survive that atmosphere? The completion of his course? His return home?
Follow Blake’s struggling pathway through the maze of Briar Falls’ exotic characters and rules of confinement. As always with this author, the technical background is flawless and instructive, the story well-crafted to capture imagination and emotion, and the writing impeccable.
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