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And Or Love by Dr. Andrew V. Mason 192 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0326; ISBN 1-55369-513-5; US$19.50, C$22.33, EUR16.00, £11.50 A novel depicting the medicine of the future
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About the Book
Eric Hamilton: American ace pilot who had his arm shot off in the war and is desperate because he can't get a job flying. Dr. Faust: Genetic genius who has regrown arms on monkeys by harnessing the 'regrow gene' of lobsters. Renata: Innocent bystander who gets caught in a whirlpool of chaos, danger and absurdity. The great arsenal of chance throws three super-egos into a boiling cauldron of love, conflict, compassion, danger and suspense. Eric Hamilton gains love, but realizes his changes of growing a new arm are zero minus one.
Dr. Faust: "Renata, I'm going to ask you to do what no human being should ask another to do."
Renata mused: "I've heard of sex for love, and even sex for money, but I never heard of sex to grow someone an arm. I'm semi-virginal, if there is such a thing, and I don't know how I'll respond to regualr standard sex, let alone this baroque sex."
"Yes, it's true, Renata may deliver a normal baby boy or a lobster or any mixture thereof."
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About the Author
Dr. Andrew V. Mason is a board certified surgeon who practiced in Boston and its suburbs for many years. He retired to Cape Cod where he continues to write, fish, play golf and cook.
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Sample Excerpts
Chapter 1
"Renata - No human should ask another human todo what I am about to ask you to do."
"Then why - why are you........"
"Because a once in a lifetime opportunity has just hit me between the eyes like a bolt of lightning; the hammer of Thor."
"How - how pray does this, this ......"
"Please, please be patient. If I ever muster up enough nerve to ask you, you'll understand why this is so difficult for me."
"Dr. Faust, are you all right? I never heard you talk in circles before."
"If you are shocked at what I am about to say, please just say stop - stop right there and that will be the end of the matter."
"I'm a grown girl and there aren't many things that might shock or embarrass me."
"You're a beautiful, trustworthy, and intelligent woman and that is now what I desperately need."
"And you're a brilliant research biologist who has wrought cosmic miracles and who probably has saved my father's life - and probably my mother's and indirectly mine and my twin sisters' too. So forget the platitudes and let's get on with your strange request. You act as though you're asking for the moon."
"Much, much more......believe me it's much, much more. Let me tell you about this bizarre request that was made of me which is why I'm making such an outlandish request of you." He hesitated.
"Go on; I'm bristling with curiousity."
Here was Dr. Faust, whose brain was equal or superior to Einstein's and whose morality was rivaled only by Christ himself, talking to her in this mysterious way. He was the creator of "Castle Farm", a most modern genetic bio-chemical research center nestled in the mountains of Switzerland, just outside Zurich.
'You know all about Castle Farm, where I've been able to grow new arms and legs on all kinds of animals - dogs, cats, rats and monkeys."
"Yes, I know."
"And now I have a chance to do the one thing in my life that I've wanted to do in my wildest dreams.
"So, how does that affect......?"
"So the accident of accidents has been dropped in my lap and if I could do this - this thing that I have dreamed of only on my most clairvoyant days, I -- I....."
Renata studied the lines of his handsome face and sensed a deep anxiety, hope, fear and frustration tht he was trying to control. There was an immortality about him; he possessed something that would never die; and by any measure deserved to live, to keep the world from spinning out of control. Always seeking, never quite finding; always hungry, always thirsty and always partially getting; full of the joys of life.
He belonged to that greatest of human aristocracies - the "can do" aristocracy. Here was Deity and Humanity all rolled into one enthralling package.
"My curiousity balloon is about to explode. What is that accident of accidents that fell into your lap?"
"I might have a chance to grow a new arm on a human being."
"An arm --- on a human?"
"Yes, Renata, on a human, not an animal."
"And how pray - does this concern me; how do I fit into this strange scenario?"
"I'm - I'm leading up to that. I guess the best place to start is at the beginning."
"That's usually a good place to start."
"An American war hero, an ace, a Mr. Eric Hamilton had his arm shot off in an air battle in the last war and he came to me to ask if I could grow him a new arm. He - he said he was seriously thinking of suicide if I wouldn't try."
"Suicide" You mean deadly suicide?"
"Yes, and I've had him checked out; he is a most worthy person; intelligent, kind, handsome..... a most deserving fellow. Everyone talked about him in superlatives. Just the type of individual I need for this greatest experiment of my life. He would be the last link in a chain I've been forging for years. Something constantly hovering in the periphery of my mind; not knowing exat beautiful women he had ever met and the daughter of his closest friend and his best research associate.
The intense desire to go ahead with this experiment had singed his brain, had softened it so he could talk this way to her. Would it remind her that her brother and fiance had both been killed in the same war?
He looked skyward at the beautiful bellowing white clouds floating slowly westward. He was not a religious man in the standard sense of the word but he was deeply religious in his own way. He continued to stare at the sky and mumbled, "Forgive me dear Lord for what I have done - please forgive me."
Subliminal electrically charged particles vibrated between them.
"You said my father knows about this and he said that it was up to me."
"Yes."
"I'll think about it - and...." She reached out and started to shake hands but they embraced without their lips touching. He could feel the moisture on her cheek and her body trembling.
"If I do get a chance to do this I will have gotten more out of life than there is in it. I'm a believer in Cosmic Justice and I know that for every favor there is a price and I'd be willing to pay for this great favor - whatever the cost."
Renata thought to herself as she looked in the mirror; we pray hardest standing and with dry eyes. Dear Lord what shall I do?
How could he, my godfather, have spoken to me in that way about such a sacred subject?
She liked and respected Dr. Faust as much as her parents, yet he had no right to ask her to have sex with a stranger even though it might be a cog in growing him a new arm - an arm that was shot off in a crazy war - war - man's greatest satire against man. And what did it prove? That man learned nothing from history and that history was just a story of man's blunders - stupidity, chaos and greed. Come to think of it, didn't she remember Dr. Faust once saying that two of the main ingredients of human life were chaos and absurdity? Now she better understood what he meant. Now the world was safe for another war.
Dr. Faust had isolated the arm - regrowing a gene from a lobster and was he somehow in this bizarre sexual encounter going to get it into Mr. Hamilton? Of course she was old enough to realize that sex had a great part to play in the creation of life. So it was somehow needed to grow him a live arm. But why her? How her life cast its seeds randomly - randomly baloney - they were casting at her.
She stood in front of the large picture of her apartment and watched the sailboats on Lake Zurich. She took out the picture of Mr. Hamilton and sensed that there was an air about him; someone who was full of the joys of life. The Greeks had a word for it (Levendis) "Full of the joys of life".
Then she thought of her brother, young, handsome, - and her fiance - all killed in a stupid war. Suddenly she had a powerful Augenblich urge to meet Mr. Hamilton. If she could help him regrow an arm it would be a blow against the war, what the war had stolen would be given back and in some small way a blow against man's inhumanity to man.
Could it be that she had fallen in love with a picture? Strange - strange - strange.
It was nine-thirty. She picked up the phone and hesitated; she would spend an hour with him and if she didn't like him she would call it all off.
She dialed Dr. Faust's private number. The phone rang once.
"Renata?"
"Yes...I... I'll do it."
"Thank God, Renata - thank God."
She put the phone down quickly so she wouldn't change her mind. She turned back to the mirror and watched a tear trickle down her left cheek and tasted its salinity. Was it a tear of happiness or sadness? Were happiness and sadness a Ying-Yang, warp and woof, flotsam and jetsam of one another?
She knew that the chemistry of an emotional human tear was different from the chemistry of a tear caused by dust or peeling an onion. Did tears help wash out sadness? Is that why people cried?
Her hand trembled as she touched her eyes. She was quivering in her bone marrow. Sex by a plumb line, was this all a crazy dream? Thank God she wasn't a total - total virgin. The night before her fiance left for the war, they had some sort of sex. They were both so nervous that it was a farce, but they both pretended that it was great.
Even though that first sex was a bust, it didn't take a genius to recognize that there was a great potential lurking in that area, and perhaps - perhaps it was time to give it another whirl. She looked at Eric Hamilton's picture again. Thank God she wasn't a total virgin, she sensed that her virginity was part of the trouble that night. She instinctively knew that sex was a critically important part of human life and that there was sex for love and sex for money, but sex to grow someone a new arm must be something that no one on this earth ever heard of. Why must she be a victim of this baroque sex when she wasn't yet sure of her performance and reaction to standard sex? Why - why - why? She fell asleep and dreamt of Dr. Faust with lobster claws as arms.
Thank God beauty is only skin deep, imagine having to show someone your liver or spleen before he would ask you for a date.
A secret is no fun unless you can almost tell it.
Laughter works the toxic substances out of the blood that worry and frustration create and very few people die of excessive laughter.
Overheard: "Do you have a perfume that says yes - but not on the first date?"
Parents have the poorest credentials for raising children; yet they are the ones most likely to have them.
"No big deal, just a little wifely sex."
Catalogue Information
