Michael Hoffman

Withdrawal: a Novel Michael Hoffman

Len Fishman, errant son, aimless wanderer and, perhaps, father of one, is home in claustrophobic Nectar after twenty-five years. Why did he leave? What brought him back? Ostensibly, his father, the amateur philosopher and, perhaps, closet philanderer Saul Fishman, now an Alzheimer's patient at the Albert Einstein Hospital Geriatric Center. But why does Len stay, nursing a father who doesn't recognize him and wouldn't notice his absence? To recover an innocent past via the girl he loved for a week in grade five? To resume his discipleship to his former high school English teacher, now a rising star on the municipal council? To grasp the truth, when all the evidence suggests there is no such thing? Enigma deepens, solutions whither. Is the Einstein an isolation ward, alien and remote? Or is it where we're all heading?