His wife and daughter have just been killed in an accident on the 401 but he won't take time off and barely talks at all for the first several sessions. He is tall and wears his long hair in two braids, reflecting his Indigenous identity. Somehow Peter is still beholden to his mother, who provides him with an apartment and cooks for him weekly.ĭanny, who was referred by his boss at a long-distance trucking company, has even more reticence than Laura. His only companion was a toy piano, his secret friend until the day his mother smashed it. His sister was better behaved so was allowed to sit in the restaurant all day. His father was driven to a diabetic death by his wife when Peter was nine. Turns out he was locked in his room every day from birth to school age while his Chinese mother ran a store and restaurant. Peter is a pianist in a successful band but at 43 is still a virgin, and none of the erectile dysfunction drugs available in 1986 are helping.
And Laura, hoping for a quick prescription fix, must commit to weekly sessions that will stretch into five years.
As a newly-minted therapist eager to "save the world," Gildiner realizes she must work slowly to engage with Laura and earn her trust. She is attractive and smart, but trapped in a relationship with an abusive male not unlike her father. Laura (all the names and identifying details have been altered) is her first patient, a young woman who has herpes and can't reduce the stress in her life enough to heal from the virus. We are invited into her office and allowed to share in the exploration of childhoods that no one deserved and weaker victims would not have survived. She shares the stories of five of her clients in "Good Morning, Monster." These are not written with academic detachment but with empathy, deep caring and the occasional wit that her memoirs displayed.
All were bestsellers, as was her novel, "Seduction."īut before becoming a writer, Gildiner spent 25 years in private practice as a clinical psychologist. She followed it with her teen years, "After the Falls," and her coming of age at U of T and Oxford in the 60s ("Coming Ashore"). My family read it and laughed aloud that Christmas. "Too Close to the Falls," about her early life as the daughter of a pharmacist in Niagara Falls, New York, was published in 1999. "Good Morning, Monster: five heroic journeys to recovery", Catherine Gildiner, Viking, 359 p., $23.99 paperback, ebook and audiobook availableĬatherine Gildiner is best-known for her memoirs.
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