- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Abacus; Export ed edition (20 Jan 2011)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0349123241
- ISBN-13: 978-0349123240
- Product Dimensions: 15.4 x 2.2 x 23.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 302,972 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Good Psychologist
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Product Description
Review
'An intriguing novel. Shpancer shows that need imagination and metaphor to understand even the most pedestrian aspects of the human mind' --Times Literary Supplement
'It's a juicy plot in which the human mind is carefully undressed. Cheaper, funnier and far easier to access than real therapy, this elegant and humane novel should help readers to relax examine their own lives - and then live them' --Helen Brown, Daily Mail
'If Noam Shpancer is as sharp a therapist as he is a writer of English . . . You'd be glad to be a client of his' --Robert Collins, Sunday Times
'Fascinating . . . A wonderful musing on the nature of how and why we remember things. Through the character of the psychologist, who is also running a lecture series about his craft, Shpancer is able to explore exactly how the mind works. He is at his most brilliant when explaining why there is no such thing as truth: we only have the stories we tell ourselves . . . I loved it.'
--Viv Groskop, Mslexia
'It's a juicy plot in which the human mind is carefully undressed. Cheaper, funnier and far easier to access than real therapy, this elegant and humane novel should help readers to relax examine their own lives - and then live them' --Helen Brown, Daily Mail
'If Noam Shpancer is as sharp a therapist as he is a writer of English . . . You'd be glad to be a client of his' --Robert Collins, Sunday Times
'Fascinating . . . A wonderful musing on the nature of how and why we remember things. Through the character of the psychologist, who is also running a lecture series about his craft, Shpancer is able to explore exactly how the mind works. He is at his most brilliant when explaining why there is no such thing as truth: we only have the stories we tell ourselves . . . I loved it.'
--Viv Groskop, Mslexia
Book Description
* A quirky and wonderfully written first novel that got rave reviews in C format, about a good psychologist, available now in paperback
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
I enjoyed the book and thought it was always interesting. The story was very simple A to B stuff without much complication or development. And the characters were missing any convincing depths. This comes across as deliberate minimalism and not outright bad writing. Or at least the author has turned his weakness for plot and character into a strength.
The book is also slightly shorter than most. In my experience the average novel takes about six hours to read. I finished this in about four and a half hours (238 pages).
I'm a little surprised at how unambitious it is in scale. It reads almost like a screenplay for a very low budget French film. The lack of scale seems odd, as though the use of every location and extra character was a costly burden he was trying to avoid. And I say French film as it shares that feeling of existential emptiness* I usually get from that countries films (see The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Death In A French Garden, Novo and especially The Pornographer which ramps it up to a silly degree).
The oddest thing about the book is that it lacks quotation marks when people speak. My best guess is that he's trying to blur the line between what is said inside, and what is said out loud. I quickly got used to this quirk so it wasn't an issue.
It's a decent book and not at all hard to read. I wouldn't recommend it, although I also wouldn't talk anyone out of reading it. The book is not insubstantial, just very minimalist.
* A lack of overt drama. A strange disconnect between the characters as they talk in elliptical sentences to each other. Main and sub-plots often left unresolved. Just a general feeling of tired ennui.
The book is also slightly shorter than most. In my experience the average novel takes about six hours to read. I finished this in about four and a half hours (238 pages).
I'm a little surprised at how unambitious it is in scale. It reads almost like a screenplay for a very low budget French film. The lack of scale seems odd, as though the use of every location and extra character was a costly burden he was trying to avoid. And I say French film as it shares that feeling of existential emptiness* I usually get from that countries films (see The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Death In A French Garden, Novo and especially The Pornographer which ramps it up to a silly degree).
The oddest thing about the book is that it lacks quotation marks when people speak. My best guess is that he's trying to blur the line between what is said inside, and what is said out loud. I quickly got used to this quirk so it wasn't an issue.
It's a decent book and not at all hard to read. I wouldn't recommend it, although I also wouldn't talk anyone out of reading it. The book is not insubstantial, just very minimalist.
* A lack of overt drama. A strange disconnect between the characters as they talk in elliptical sentences to each other. Main and sub-plots often left unresolved. Just a general feeling of tired ennui.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
The protagonist of this interesting novel is a psychologist and lecturer - and a father to a child he has never seen conceived with the woman he loves but he can't have. His lectures are popular with the students and his practice is successful, but that does not fill him with the same satisfaction it used to and more and more he feels the loneliness of his existence creeping in and he struggles to apply the advice that he so freely gives in both his professional settings to his personal life.
We meet him at the time when he has just started with a new case; a stripper who has developed a fear of performing - an issue that self-evidently threatens to destroy her livelihood - and her chance of making enough money to get her daughter back. The psychologist takes a special interest in the case risking not only to compromise his professional living but also his personal life since she makes it difficult not to blur the lines.
I really like the idea behind the story and it is very well written with many interesting, funny and useful observations along the way. I also like the interchanging roles he has as a lecturer, psychologist and individual (or maybe not so changing by the end of the day - there is a reason why I now shortly after finishing the book cannot remember his name, but just call him the psychologist).
The lectures are cleverly used to give us an insight in the theories and the reasoning behind the theories he uses in the psychologist chair and which we see applied in the stripper case all the same as we see how he doesn't exactly follow his own advice in the private sphere. The story develops naturally and at a good pace and the characters are interesting and believable, the writing fluent and it is such a novel idea that even though there are a few places where he is dangerously close to slipping into stereotypes and overused examples, I still enjoyed the read very much. Definitely recommendable!
We meet him at the time when he has just started with a new case; a stripper who has developed a fear of performing - an issue that self-evidently threatens to destroy her livelihood - and her chance of making enough money to get her daughter back. The psychologist takes a special interest in the case risking not only to compromise his professional living but also his personal life since she makes it difficult not to blur the lines.
I really like the idea behind the story and it is very well written with many interesting, funny and useful observations along the way. I also like the interchanging roles he has as a lecturer, psychologist and individual (or maybe not so changing by the end of the day - there is a reason why I now shortly after finishing the book cannot remember his name, but just call him the psychologist).
The lectures are cleverly used to give us an insight in the theories and the reasoning behind the theories he uses in the psychologist chair and which we see applied in the stripper case all the same as we see how he doesn't exactly follow his own advice in the private sphere. The story develops naturally and at a good pace and the characters are interesting and believable, the writing fluent and it is such a novel idea that even though there are a few places where he is dangerously close to slipping into stereotypes and overused examples, I still enjoyed the read very much. Definitely recommendable!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
There is a certain detachment in this book which feels inappropriate for a novel and it took me a long time to warm to it. This is partly because the charatcters are rarely referred to by name and instead referred to by role or characteristic: 'The psychologist', 'the four o'clock appointment', 'the pink-haired girl' and so on. This, combined with a lack of any speech or quotation marks, leads to a real sense of distance.
So, the book generally engages at the cognitive rather than affective level; and I began to wonder if it isn't a novel at all, but rather a manual on cognitive behavioural therapy cast in the form of a novel. You can certainly learn a lot about the therapeutic process from the book and much of it rings very true.
But there is emotional engagement, though only in the subplot, which concerns a forbidden love which wracks the psychologist and almost derails him emotionally. Sadly, the general 'arms-length' sense in the writing kept me from caring deeply about the outcome, which was a shame.
But I've still given the book four stars because it is well written, if a little stiff and mannered in places, and the development and narrative thrust kept me interested and wanting to read to the end. Ultimately, an enjoyable read.
So, the book generally engages at the cognitive rather than affective level; and I began to wonder if it isn't a novel at all, but rather a manual on cognitive behavioural therapy cast in the form of a novel. You can certainly learn a lot about the therapeutic process from the book and much of it rings very true.
But there is emotional engagement, though only in the subplot, which concerns a forbidden love which wracks the psychologist and almost derails him emotionally. Sadly, the general 'arms-length' sense in the writing kept me from caring deeply about the outcome, which was a shame.
But I've still given the book four stars because it is well written, if a little stiff and mannered in places, and the development and narrative thrust kept me interested and wanting to read to the end. Ultimately, an enjoyable read.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Not the best of psychologically themed novels
But a decent enough read, the pace and style of writing I found to be agreeable without being pacey like a thriller, there is not a lot of suspense and the plot was a little... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Lark
well written psychological portraits
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Thoughtful take on the human mind
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You will need more than a passing interest in psychology
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'In Treatment' in a novel ...
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A novel novel!
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Published 14 months ago by Mrs. R.
The Good Psychologist
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