The Spirit of the Place (2008)
Coming Soon

From the first line--"Even a shy American can be happy in Italy, and Orville Rose was about as happy as a childless man can be"--this is a novel of love and death, of mothers and sons, of doctors and patients, and, above all, of "The Spirit of the Place", a quirky small Hudson River town "plagued by breakage"--a novel filled with the ineffable "Shem-humor" and pointed insight and drama. Dr. Orville Rose returns to visit his hometown of "Columbia" upon the death of his mother. Despite being in love with a Buddhist yoga teacher in Italy, he is forced by the bizarre terms of his mother's will to stay for a year and 13 days, and, seeing the declining health of his mentor, the old doctor, winds up working as the doctor to the town he had fled, facing his past friends and demons, challenged to find understanding, love, and a home.

Read More about The Spirit of the Place

A note from Editorial Director of Other Press, Rosemary Ahern

The House of God (1978)

"Bawdy, blistering... This is Catch 22 with stethescopes." -Cosmopolitan

The outrageously funny, bitingly brilliant novel of Dr. Basch's training to be a doctor in a hospital called 'The House of God.' The story of survival, heartache, love, death and sex--a novel called "an American classic," "one of the two most significant American medical novels of the 20th century," "The book to read about becoming a doctor," "Rabelaisian," and "a small masterpiece."

Read the new introduction by John Updike!

Mount Misery (1996)

"Outrageously funny, a sage and important novel by a healer and a Shakespearean"-Boston Globe

The sequel to THE HOUSE OF GOD, Dr. Basch entering his training to be a psychiatrist at a large mental hospital called "Mount Misery." The same outrageous humor, gut-wrenching drama, love and death, as Roy seaches to become not just a doctor but a healer-a novel called "another medical classic," "outrageously funny, a sage and important novel by a healer and a Shakespearean," "supberbly incisive and witty, a carnival of fascinating secrets and terrible abuses."

Fine (1985)

"Funny...Full of dazzling, zany intelligence...energetic and exuberant." --New York Times

The story of Dr. Fine, a young man learning to be the complete psychiatrist: doing scientific research on memory (teaching grasshoppers to lift their legs and eat calcium pills), becoming a psychoanalyst, caught up
in a mystery involving a killer patient, and, above all, trying to find the answer to two questions: "What is love?" and "How do people change?"--"Exhilarating, a glittering gemstone, dazzling," "full of dazzling, zany intelligence," "a story filled with metaphysical overtones," "a rolicking journey of self-discovery and love."

We Have to Talk: Healing Dialogues Between Men and Women (with Janet Surrey, 1999)

"A triumph! This book has the power to change lives."--Joan Borysenko, Ph.D.

Shem and Surrey have worked with more than 20,000 men, women, boys, and girls. We hear workshop participants using "gender dialogue": asking questions to aid in understanding and reconnecting, such as "Name three strengths the other gender group brings to relationships," "What do you most want to understand about the other gender group?", and "What do you most want the other gender group to understand about you?"

"Disconnections between men and women are inevitable--no one ever gets it right the first time, or all the time," say the authors. "It's not only what you do that matters, it's what you do next." This book gives insights into our differences--such as men's "relational dread" and women's "relational yearning," and how to move past conflict to collaboration. The chapter "How Couples Grow" is invaluable, describing a detailed process to work through impasses and rediscover the "we" in your relationship.--Joan Price

Coming in October 2008 from Kent State University Press: RETURN TO THE HOUSE OF GOD: MEDICAL RESIDENT EDUCATION 1978-2008."

Making Connections
Building Community and Gender Dialogue in Secondary Schools (with Nancy Beardall and Janet Surrey)

"MAKING CONNECTIONS is brilliant, innovative, and above all, desperatively needed today. With this practical, hands-on curriculum, derived from years of thought and practice, the authors offer a tool to avert the disruptions
and distress of interpersonal disconnection." --Edward Hallowell, M.D., founder of the Hallowell Center and author of "CONNECT:12 VITAL TIES THAT OPEN YOUR HEART, LENGTHEN YOUR LIFE, AND DEEPEN YOUR SOUL."

"This eye-opening, life-changing curriculm is like a fail-safe course in walking on fire: but these students learn there doesn't have to be any fire--just life itself, on common ground."--Christina Robb, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author of "THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING: THE RELATIONAL REVOLUTION IN PSYCHOLOGY.