Alumni Authors: Fiction

Thereafter Johnnie by Carolivia Herron weaves beauty, sorrow and tragic vision into the fall of an incestuous African American family. The failure of this middle-class family of Washington, DC is linked to failures of national destiny, religion, and the crime of slavery.

BRILLIANT, YOUNG AND AMBITIOUS, Annika Tritzchler defies the norms of 1930s Berlin by pursuing medical training in a venue traditionally dominated by men. Facing contempt from her counterparts is minor compared to the massive upheaval in a city transitioning to dictatorship while brutally persecuting its enemies.

Annika's career takes a decisive turn when, early in her psychiatric residency, she is expected to participate in applied eugenics- the roguish trend within Nazi medicine. Sterilizing patients deemed racially inferior and euthanizing the handicapped (including patients that she, herself, has been treating) works against everything she holds sacred. Acquiescence means choosing survival over morality, the antithesis to the spirituality nurtured by her Lutheran mother and Jewish stepfather.

Brimming with historical detail, Fräulein is less a story of Nazism than a woman's attempt to rediscover meaning after her sense of self was shattered by unimaginable trauma. Recapturing identity is central, but only if she comes to terms with guilt.

Set in suburban Philadelphia, Braydon Mitchell, Ph.D. is a thirty-something, married psychologist whose life has become a see-saw of struggles: personal and professional. Written in the first-person, Dr. Mitchell (Braydon) walks us through a fictionalized spectrum of psychiatric cases, including diagnoses, treatment plans and complications. The story's irony, however, is that while Braydon spends each day doctoring his patients, his own marriage is crumbling under the weight of unresolved hurts and personal tragedy. His downfall is to gloss over these problems through a variety of self-defeating distractions, which is in complete contrast to the advice he so blithely offers his patients. Over time, his self-styled veneer as a respected clinician gives way to his feeling like an impostor. In a moment of utter despondency, he refers to himself as "Sigmund Fraud." The dilemma he confronts is whether his emotional burdens and poor problem-solving skills will destroy not just his livelihood but him in the process.

A silver lining could be that his failures would cut away at the professional distance between Braydon and his patients, giving him greater capacity for empathy. Maybe. But one thing's for certain. He will discover that as a man who earns a living by conveying wisdom, he is not above the same type of frailties faced by anyone seeking his services, no matter how unique or bizarre their circumstances might initially appear.

The novel doesn't end on this simple, existential note. Instead, it snakes through numerous sub-plots that all come together in a denouement that defines the doctor's true self. Whatever insight he might have gained in the process is a gift that comes not from textbooks or mentors, but from the very individuals who have humbled themselves before him. He will need to discover that his patients are in some ways healthier for having taken the risk of confiding and working on their insecurities, a risk that Braydon finds utterly challenging.

Entitled Sigmund Fraud, Licensed Impostor, this down-to-earth novel paints a human face on both patients and the caregivers that minister to them. They are all similar, all human, no matter what their professions, accomplishments, or boastings might suggest. The underlying theme is that there is more to each person than the fabricated face presented in everyday life. George Eliot suggested that one can't judge a book by its cover. And one of the characters in James Jones' The Thin Red Line said, " … everybody lived by a selected fiction. Nobody was really what he pretended to be." Leonards' novel looks beyond those fictions by providing a window into the vulnerabilities and defense mechanisms shared by doctor and patient alike.