Perlman's Ordeal Author:Brooks Hansen One evening in London in 1906, Dr. August Perlman-music lover, hashish devotee, and pioneer of"clinical suggestion" -is about to leave for the symphony when Sylvie Blum, a hysterical teenage girl is brought into his office.It seems that another girl's personality is living inside her, and soon a charismatic spiritualist, Madame Helena Barrett, h... more »as young Sylvie telling an astonishing story that resembles the myth of Atlantis.In a time just before the reign of Freud, the doctor and the spiritualist will fight a heated battle for the soul of the girl.Brooks Hansen evokes a bygone power of the imagination to transcend history and invigorate myth.Like The Chess Garden, his celebrated first novel, Perlman's Ordeal shows that Hansen is an exceptional writer-and suggests that the art of storytelling can change our lives.« less