Walter Minion's Therapy

About the Book

A combination of black comedy, allegory, high adventure, and exploration of human relationships in a crazy world.

Walter Minion is an archetypical retired Englishman. His life is gentle and domesticated. But gradually little stresses mount, culminating in his bizarre attempt at suicide. He is incarcerated in a mental institution where he is treated in inexplicable ways by strange characters. His enforced therapy is to undertake a voyage around the world, alone, on a small yacht. In mid-Atlantic a wondrous girl swims alongside and climbs aboard. Spray is feminine perfection, but Walter discovers that she is also weirdly unnatural.

The two are caught up in a series of wild adventures as they cross oceans, make exotic landfalls and survive terrifying dangers. They encounter more people: good, evil and mad. Throughout their odyssey Spray holds out tantalising prospects of submission and erotic rapture. Walter wrestles with the emotional conflicts that ensue, and with humanity's stupidity and hatred, beauty and love. Walter's therapy sails to a surprising finale, a counterpoint of tragedy and joyful triumph. But what is reality, and what is delusion?

For more information visit the book's web site: www.walterminion.com

Patrick O'Connor weaves fantasy, dreams, frustrated erotic yearnings, life's experiences and sweeping knowledge of natural history, sailing and the oceans into a wonderful, inspiring and fast-moving adventure.

Within this panoply he patches observations and opinions about the dumbing down world: avarice, power hunger, piracy, psychiatric quackery, clinical corruption and modern miscalled music. Tears of anger and despair bespatter those pages. These are warnings to the rest of us: keep speeding on to mankind's doom or veer sharply to restored enlightenment.

Essential reading for world leaders and educationalists.

-The Hucklow Hermes

About the Author

Patrick O'Connor was born in London, on 7th. March 1937. He travelled as a baby to Trinidad, where his father had obtained work as a geologist on the oil fields. He grew up on the island, with his three younger brothers and sister. He attended boarding school in Barbados.

On leaving school he joined the Royal Air Force, studied at the RAF Technical College, and was commissioned as an Engineering Officer. He served in the UK and in Germany, and while there he met his wife Ina. They returned to England, where their five sons were born. He retired from the RAF in 1975. He worked in the aerospace industry and for the railways, before becoming an independent consultant on reliability and safety engineering in 1995. He is the author of three books on engineering and management.

He and Ina now live in Hertfordshire, England.