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  • The Thanatos Syndrome

  • Written by: Walker Percy
  • Narrated by: David Hilder
  • Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
  • 3.0 out of 5 stars (2 ratings)

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The Thanatos Syndrome cover art

The Thanatos Syndrome

Written by: Walker Percy
Narrated by: David Hilder
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Publisher's Summary

When Dr. Tom More (of Love in the Ruins) is released on parole from state prison, he returns to Feliciana, Louisiana, the parish where he was born and bred, and where he practiced psychiatry before his arrest. Upon arriving, he notices something strange in almost everyone around him: unusual sexual behavior in women patients, a bizarre loss of inhibition, a lack of complexity in speech - even his own wife’s extraordinary success at bridge tournaments, during which her mind seems to function like a computer.

With the ingenious help of his attractive cousin, Dr. Lucy Lipscomb, More begins to uncover a criminal experiment to "improve" people’s behavior by drugging the local water supply. But beyond this scheme are activities so sinister that even Tom More wouldn’t believe them if he hadn’t witnessed them with his own eyes.

©1987 Walker Percy (P)2000 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

What the critics say

"Spins along at a brisk thriller pace, laced with escapes and chase scenes and risky, ingenious detective work." (Gail Godwin, New York Times Book Review)
"What a pleasure it is to read a real novel… The Thanatos Syndrome has the ambition and purposefulness to take on the world, to wrestle with its shortcomings, and to celebrate its glories." ( Washington Post Book World)
"He is a dazzlingly gifted novelist…Percy stages a lively medical mystery…that no serious reader will want to miss." ( USA Today)

What listeners say about The Thanatos Syndrome

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Five hours in and I give up.

After five hours of giving this an honest try, there is no sign of a good story or a break in the monotonous narration. If I need to hang in there, I'm no longer willing to do it.

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