Windows on the Abyss

The death of George’s mother triggers in him guilt-riddled memories of the breakup of his marriage and his subse-quent neglect of both wife and mother. He relates in a polyphony of voices the build-up to a series of break-downs and his eventual confinement in a clinic. These voices are interleaved with the voice of his estranged wife, Amanda. Although Amanda’s and George’s voices are independent of each other, they nevertheless echo off each other to such an extent that the two of them are inescapably drawn together once George has recovered. The reunion is however short-lived. George is again stranded with guilt-riddled memories that refuse to fade.

George attempts to understand his extreme states of mind not on Freud’s by now creaky couch, but rather in terms of current ideas in neurobiology and quantum physics. He attempts at the same time to find through poetry, a form that will accommodate the mess in his head.