When God Wept

Chicago psychologist, Dr. Owen Ross, is a man who after enduring a lifetime of personal pain realizes that his life has become empty and meaningless. Afflicted by an insidious apathy, he no longer cares or feels compassion for others. Upon getting divorced, he reassesses the events that constitute his life, and throughout the course of one day, becomes horrified by his existence. Living in a godless universe, Ross is forced to come to terms with his mother’s suicide, his father’s religiosity, his daughter’s death, and the undisclosed love he has for a female co-worker. Depicting the toils of human existence within the decay of modern society, this novel is a journey into the human soul, examining the greater questions of authenticity, life and death, immortality, and the personal power of transcendence. Regardless of one’s background, the reader will identify with the universal themes that preoccupy us all.


“From the painful beginning Mills weaves a dense and compelling psychological meditation on the absence of meaning in contemporary life. Reminiscent at times of Sartre’s Nausea, Mills’ book moves through a series of powerful recognitions to a surprising and shocking end. This is a thoughtful novel, full of challenging reflections. There are few books I’ve read in one sitting. Mills’ is among them.”


—Walter A. Davis, Emeritus Professor of English, Ohio State University; author of Get the Guests: Psychoanalysis, Modern American Drama, and the Audience and The Holocaust Memorial: A Play about Hiroshima


“In a wonderfully perceptive account of human inadequacy, Mills reveals many of the most troubling ills of the modern world. This is a beautifully crafted, totally absorbing book.”


—John Lachs, Centennial Professor of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University; author of In Love with Life


“Mills’ powerful and reflective novel is destined to have the same impact on twenty-first century readers that Sartre, Camus, and Kafka had on the twentieth. A splendid, contemporary achievement!”


—M. Guy Thompson, author of The Death of Desire


JON MILLS is a psychologist, philosopher, and psychoanalyst. He lives with his wife and daughters in Toronto.