Kunma
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The myths and legends of the Tibetan Book of the Dead come alive in this brilliant first novel by the world-renowned director of stage and opera.
Laurel Hunt walked into the office of David Sussman enveloped in a grave beauty that took his breath away. And then she announced that her husband, who was currently in a mental institution, was not crazy but in the grip of something monstrous.
Dr. Sussman had ministered to his patients' fantasies, neuroses, and psychoses for a good number of years; he'd studied in India and Tibet; he'd seen and heard it all before. Or so he thought.
This case would take him, against his will and in the face of every scientific law he held dear, into the realms of reincarnation and Buddhist myth. But these realms were not the bottom of this mystic enigma-only in the Tibetan Book of the Dead would David Sussman begin to find the answers he sought. As murder and madness stalk him, the evidence leads David to a conclusion his sanity refuses to accept . . . until the mists of Time and Space open to reveal the monstrosity that has come to claim him as its own-the Kunma.
A stunning first novel that takes the reader deep into the unknown regions of mind and soul and into the very heart of the darkness that lives in every human being.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Reincarnation and karmic destiny direct the adventures of a psychiatrist hero in Corsaro's earnest but gawky horror debut. David Sussman, an unorthodox Manhattan shrink who incorporates Buddhist principles into his practice, receives a request from wealthy Laurel Hunt to treat her art dealer husband, Hugh, who's been hospitalized after a psychotic break that has him convinced he's "burning up." Uninterested, David fobs Laurel off on a colleague who, after interviewing her, utters the cryptic word "Kunma" and then dies in spectacularly gruesome fashion. Drawn ineluctably into the intrigue and all too eagerly into Laurel's bed David investigates and begins turning up clues about Hugh, Laurel and their son Chris that resonate strangely with his own religious beliefs. When a bookseller friend apprises David that "the Kunma is a thief of the soul" from Tibetan mythology, David is galvanized into spiritual self-examination to find answers to the increasingly bizarre puzzle in a possible past life. Corsaro makes the most of his novel's unusual Buddhist angle, giving the reader just enough mystical instruction at key points to make sense of events without dispelling their supernatural aura. Inevitably, though, he inflicts lengthy, literal dreams on David to explain exactly what's happening. Once the mystery is demystified, the novel shifts to conventional thriller mode, replete with a bloody shoot-out in a protracted climax. Readers won't have to believe in d j vu to feel that they've seen most of this tale's surprises before.
