Dr. Albert Prendergast, one of the eminent psychiatrists in Christopher Hogart's new novel, Shrunk (Bickerstaff Press), is everything you'd look for in a therapist. He's a titled clinician at a leading hospital. He has a thriving private practice and the respect of his patients and colleagues. He's also crazy as a loon, the sole occupant of a paranoid rabbit hole that Hogart pulls us into in his satiric-and scary-examination of the mental health of some of our mental health professionals.
In the world of Shrunk, the psychiatrists can be as petty, vain, backstabbing and blind to their shortcomings as the rest of us. The tools of their trade allow for some very sophisticated rationalizations. Should we use greater due diligence in choosing those to whom we give the keys to our head? They may not, Hogart winkingly reminds us, always be in a condition to drive.