The Mask of Sanity, Jacob M. Appel
The Mask of Sanity, Jacob M. Appel
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The Mask of Sanity

Author: Jacob M. Appel

Narrator: Dennis Adams

Unabridged: 6 hr 35 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/27/2021


Synopsis

On the outside, Dr. Jeremy Balint is a pillar of the community: the youngest division chief at his hospital, a model son to his elderly parents, fiercely devoted to his wife and two young daughters. On the inside, Dr. Jeremy Balint is a high-functioning sociopath--a man who truly believes himself to stand above the ethical norms of society. As long as life treats him well, Balint has no cause to harm others. When life treats him poorly, he reveals the depths of his cold-blooded depravity.
At a cultural moment when the media bombards us with images of so-called sociopaths who strive for good and criminals redeemed by repentance,The Mask of Sanity offers an antidote to implausible tales of evil gone right. In contrast to fictional predecessors like Dostoyevesky's Raskolnikov and Camus' Meursault, Dr. Balint is a man who already has it all --and will do everything in his power, no matter how immoral, to keep what he has.

About Jacob M. Appel

Jacob M. Appel is the author of many novels and short story collections, including The Man Who Wouldn’t Stand Up, Scouting for the Reaper, Phoning Home, and Einstein’s Beach House. His fiction has appeared in many literary journals and has, among other honors, won both the Boston Review Short Fiction Competition and the William Faulkner–William Wisdom Competition. He has taught most recently at Brown University, the Gotham Writers’ Workshop, and Yeshiva College in New York City, where he was the writer-in-residence.


Reviews

Goodreads review by karen

i've read jacob appel's short story collections before, but never one of his full-length novels. i wasn't sure this book would deliver, since the plot sounded so much darker than his stories, and it's not always a truism that people who are great at writing stories can also write novels, and vice ve......more

Goodreads review by Karen

Wow, this was quite a disturbing view of a sociopath, to see just how normal and successful they can be, hence the title, "mask of sanity". Dr. Jeremy Balint is a very successful cardiologist, a good father, husband, and son, until he finds out his wife is having an affair with a fellow doctor at the......more