Hysteria
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3.8 • 6 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
In HYSTERIA, we meet a young woman an hour into yet another alcohol-fueled, masochistic, sexual bender at her local bar. There is a new bartender working this time, one she hasn't seen before, but who can properly make a drink. He looks familiar, and as she is consumed by shame from her behavior the previous week— hooking up with her parents' colleague and her roommate's brother— she also becomes convinced that her Brooklyn bartender is actually Sigmund Freud. They embark on a relationship, and she is forced to confront her past through the prism of their complex, revealing, and sometimes shocking meetings. With the help of Freud—or whoever he is—she begins to untangle her Oedipal leanings, her upbringing, and her desires.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A young woman's downward spiral into alcohol and sex leads to a personal breakthrough in Gross's intoxicating debut. After the unnamed protagonist hooks up with one of her psychiatrist parents' colleagues, Dr. Langham, during a weekly dinner party, then with Sam, her roommate's brother, during a chance encounter, she decides that the new bartender at a local dive, Pilz Bar, is Sigmund Freud reincarnated. Meanwhile, Sam appears at a friend's house party, having developed feelings for her ("I actually like you"), much to her frustration. Her complex feelings about older men coalesce when she returns to Pilz Bar to confront the man she calls "Freud," and an odd, imagined client-therapist relationship begins. Gross's aptitude for shocking yet highly sensory prose propels the reader along the protagonist's bender, all the way to rock bottom. The narrator's perfectly rendered inner monologue, replete with her nuanced urges and obsessions, will make readers wonder if they're getting to know her better than she knows herself, and Gross succeeds in capturing the complexities of sex addiction. It is every bit a page-turner as it is a descent into sexual madness.
