Andrea Groves
Andrea Groves This is an iconic tale of the conflict between two incompatible compulsions within the soul of one person. Every addict, every overeater, every sexual deviant, every bipolar/manic depressive or person living with multiple personality/dissociative disorder --diagnosed or not--has warred within and without with the need to express the blackballed part of their personality on one side, and the fear of expressing it on the other. Mr. Stevenson captures the horror and despondency of this dilemma. Societal superego, in Freud's terms is out to wipe out the individual primitive drive for pleasure. An d the results of this civil war are not pretty. A classic that all can appreciate, beautifully read by the narrator, although matching gender is less confusing.