Fiction. Heather Folsom's HYPOHYPOTHESIS: A NOVEL is a madcap romp, a
dark comedy which stands psychiatry on its head. It has a party scene to
rival the Mad Hatter's, and then, in a tour de force, performs the
historic function of the novel: bringing news (in this instance, a
rigorously-argued original theory of the mind). Two unlikely
protagonists, a serious, somewhat pompous professor of psychiatry and a
brilliant-but-unsound student, are thrust together in a disaster zone.
They encounter a host of supporting characters-twin sideshow fat ladies,
squabbling philosophers, an escape artist, and other unusual zany
persons. The author, herself a psychiatrist, writes in the spare and
elegant style of her first book, PHILOSOPHIE THINLY CLOTHED AND OTHER
STORIES (Cadmus Editions 2003) which received favorable critical
attention.