Mount Misery

By Samuel Shem

Book Overview

From the Laws of Mount Misery:

There are no laws in psychiatry.

Now, from the author of the riotous, moving, bestselling classic, The House of God, comes a lacerating and brilliant novel of doctors and patients in a psychiatric hospital. Mount Misery is a prestigious facility set in the rolling green hills of New England, its country club atmosphere maintained by generous corporate contributions. Dr. Roy Basch (hero of The House of God) is lucky enough to train there *only to discover doctors caught up in the circus of competing psychiatric theories, and patients who are often there for one main reason: they've got good insurance.

From the Laws of Mount Misery:

Your colleagues will hurt you more than your patients.

On rounds at Mount Misery, it's not always easy for Basch to tell the patients from the doctors: Errol Cabot, the drug cowboy whose practice provides him with guinea pigs for his imaginative prescription cocktails . . . Blair Heiler, the world expert on borderlines (a diagnosis that applies to just about everybody) . . . A. K. Lowell, n e Aliyah K. Lowenschteiner, whose Freudian analytic technique is so razor sharp it prohibits her from actually speaking to patients . . . And Schlomo Dove, the loony, outlandish shrink accused of having sex with a beautiful, well-to-do female patient.

From the Laws of Mount Misery:

Psychiatrists specialize in their defects.

For Basch the practice of psychiatry soon becomes a nightmare in which psychiatrists compete with one another to find the best ways to reduce human beings to blubbering drug-addled pods, or incite them to an extreme where excessive rage is the only rational response, or tie them up in Freudian knots. And all the while, the doctors seem less interested in their patients' mental health than in a host of other things *managed care insurance money, drug company research grants and kickbacks, and their own professional advancement.

From the Laws of Mount Misery:

In psychiatry, first comes treatment, then comes diagnosis.

What The House of God did for doctoring the body, Mount Misery does for doctoring the mind. A practicing psychiatrist, Samuel Shem brings vivid authenticity and extraordinary storytelling gifts to this long-awaited sequel, to create a novel that is laugh-out-loud hilarious, terrifying, and provocative. Filled with biting irony and a wonderful sense of the absurd, Mount Misery tells you everything you'll never learn in therapy. And it's a hell of a lot funnier.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 034546334X
• ISBN13: 9780345463340
• Release Date: July 2003
• Publisher: Ballantine Group
• Length: 576 Pages
• Weight: 1.07 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

More Hilarity at "Mount Misery"

"Mount Misery" was a facility to which unruly spouses and progeny might be constrained pending divorce or other life shaping proceedings. All too true, and, after all these years, I finally figured out that Schlomo was Freud's middle name.

If you loved The House of God, this is a must read. OR, if you do not like the mental health field,

I loved the House of God, Shem's first novel, when it was first published. I grew up in a medical family and am never at a loss for words about the medical industry. Nor am I at a loss for words when it comes to the mental health field, either, having good friends and relatives in that field, as well. I did find the style of Mount Misery a bit disappointing. However, the story it tells is very realistic. The field has made great progress in the last 20 or 30 years - this book was published only about 10 years ago, and the story it tells is as fresh as the day it was written. Shem, of course, is a pen name for a real-life doctor author, Stephen Joseph Bergman, MD. On a blog I found last year, Bergman wrote in an interview that mental health field critics claim that "Mount Misery" would not be true today. Bergman retorted: Walk around McLean Hospital, and see how the patients are talking about it. And see what is going on in the mental health field. McLean Hospital, of course, is the Harvard Pyschiatric institution in Massachusetts, and is the origin of Mount Misery. One of the copy-editors, in fact, accidentally left a reference to McLean in the copy. An article in the Boston Globe with Bergman at the time of the book's publication, quoted Bergman stating that these psychiatric disorders are highly treatable, and that the field is doing a terrible job. We need more enlightened physicians and psychiatrists like Bergman.

Intriguing, Amusing, philosophical and thought provoking

In sharp contrast to this books older and more famous brother "The house of God" this one is much less hilarious and much more thought provoking and disturbing. Dr Baschs catastrophic and nearly fatal first year of residency in a prestigious psychiatric institute is depicted in all its gloomy details. The characters in this book are quite extreme each in its own positive or negative way and shems witty and clever description of them (even for the better ones) is merciless. a word of warning - don't get to attached to any of the characters, Shem has a tendency to eliminate some of them in various stages of the book. I am a medical student, and I first read this book In my first year after reading the "House of God" - it was mildly amusing. However, I reread it this year (my fifth) after doing my rotation in a psychiatric hospital and this book is right on target. It made me think very hard about the patients, the doctors and all that's in between. A must book for everyone who is interested in medicine, psychiatry or just plain human nature.

A roller coaster ride through modern psychiatry

Roy Basch, MD, is back! For any doctor or medical student, who at one time or another read "The House of God" and learned the LAWS by heart (most of them probably even use them on a regular basis!), this is a long awaited sequel. Having decided to leave internal medicine behind and to become a psychiatrist, Basch lives through his first year as a resident at a prestigious mental institution called Mount Misery, only to find out that the name is more than just metaphorical. He discovers, that it is sometimes hard to tell the patients from their therapists, and that normal can be a question of health insurance. It is an exciting, very funny, and sometimes even frightening novel about modern psychiatry. In "House of God" the reader wondered how much of the story was satirical and just how much was true. And if you're a physician, you will know that everything in it is real. Having read "Mount Misery", you will beg your therapist to tell you that it is all just a joke. But then again, maybe you are a shrink yourself and know better... A definite must for patients and doctors.

A very critical view of todays medical/psychiatric US-system

Shem's new book is not what I expected. What I basically thought I'd get was a mere follow up to "The House of God", his 15 year old outstanding novel about medicine and internships. Mount Misery describes one year of residency training in a psychiatric hospital. While not remotely as funny as "House of God" this piece of work is more mature and goes much deeper. Shem doesn't leave too much good on psychoanalysis and Freud. This book really got to me and will keep me thinking for a while. Another masterpiece of medical novels