From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain
by Minister Faust
Published by Ballantine Books
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Reviewed by Sue Stein
What a wild ride this book turned out to be! I wasn't sure what I was in for when I turned the first page--after all, the front cover shows a superhero prone on a couch with a fashionably clad psychiatrist taking notes. But once I figured out who all the lamentably dysfunctional superheroes were, things got really interesting.
The book is ostensibly the collected psychoanalysis sessions of Dr. Eva Brain, a psychiatrist who specializes in dysfunctional and/or mentally challenged superheroes--she calls them her "sanity supplicants." This particular installment from her notebooks is titled "UNMASKED! When Being A Superhero Can't Save You From Yourself (Self-Help For Today's Hyper-Hominids)."
Her sanity supplicants include Omnipotent Man, The Flying Squirrel, Iron Lass, Brotherfly, Power Grrrl, and X-Man--and what a cast of characters they turn out to be.
As Dr. Brain single-mindedly (and I would submit, obsessively and neurotically) probes the inner workings of these superheroes splintering psyches, the entire world begins to crumble around her and the superheroes--and it was fascinating to watch it unfold.
Who is the craziest sanity supplicant? Or are any of them really even crazy? Or could Dr. Brain be some type of crazed lunatic herself? You'll have to read this book and make your own conclusions.
This is a very funny, very erudite book, full of biting cultural commentary. I loved it.
Armchair Interviews says: Superheros in a new light.