"Daddy?" He had a scar shaped like a crescent on his forehead. His hair was grey and cut so short you could see the shape of his skull and the veins feeding his brain like the Visible Man model he had helped me put together.

"Yes?" He still sounded far away.

"What are you thinking?"

"I was thinking about . . . " The sock was on now. He was lacing up the shoe by himself. " . . . how I feel about things."

No question, my mother would have sent him to a good psychologist if Dad wasn't already a shrink himself, a semi-famous shrink, in fact, Dr. William T. Friedrich. I failed Psych 1A myself, but I'm told if you made it to the second semester, your professor probably mentioned his name. He was what they used to call a neuropsychopharmacologist. If there's brain candy in your medicine cabinet, chances are my father's messed with your head, too.

Reprinted by arrangement with Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from Pharmakon by Dirk Wittenborn. Copyright © 2008 by Dirk Wittenborn.

Author Bio Dirk Wittenborn is a novelist and screenwriter whose two previous novels, Zoe and Fierce People, have been published in more than a dozen countries. Fierce People was released as a feature film in 2007. He is the Emmy-nominated producer of the HBO documentary Born Rich and the cowriter and coproducer of The Lucky Ones, a feature film about American soldiers returning from Iraq. He lives in New York City. His latest book, Pharmakon, is available this July from Viking.

Page 3 of 3 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 3 | Next