Book Review: Zone of the Interior

Zone of the Interior is a very funny, outrageous, biting, venomous and painful satire of the accomplishments and pretensions of 'anti-psychiatry' and 'anti-psychiatrists.' These include R. D. Laing (roughly denoted as Dr Willie Last), Aaron Esterson (Boris Petkin), David Cooper (Dick Drummond), Mary Barnes (Anna Shepherd), myself (Marvin Munshin), and others, as well as Shenley Hospital's Villa 21 (Con House) and Kingsley Hall (Meditation Manor). With an acute ear, keen eyes and sensitive nose, Clancy Segal interweaves fact and phantasy, as he tells the story of his attempts to seduce and be seduced by drugs and madness and revolution during the 'swinging 60's.'

One might say that this novel is a shriek, the fictional counterpart of Allen Ginsberg's poem, Howl. Both aim to depict reality, both from the micro reaches of the soul to the macro dimensions of medical and political processes. In doing so Segal deploys accurate depictions of Laing's ideas with fanciful accounts of their relationships. Often I wished he had simply have written a detailed chronicle of events. At other times I enjoyed his fictionalized accounts of LSD sessions and revolutionary intrigues. And I loved his dialogues with 'Dr Last,' while utilizing a barely readable Scottish brogue. The real Ronnie did have a marked Scottish accent, but rarely talked 'Scottish.'

Rosemary Moore