The M D Author:Thomas M. Disch A mesmerizing novel of suspense and supernatural horror - set in the recent past and a near future grislier than anyone could possible imagine - in which the caduceaus, the winged, serpentine emblem of the physician's healing art, becomes the ultimate instrument of coruption and death. — In Minneapolis, in the early seventies, a young boy has a v... more »ision of Santa Claus on a snowy winter's day. This is Billy Michaels's first glimpse of the forces that willf orm, and deform, his life. Santa, as it turns out,is only one of the many guises adopted by Mercury, the ancient god of medical science who now introduces Billy to the caduceaus and its extraordinary powers.
We watch, galvanized, as the future M.D. of the title learns to "charge" this dreadful talisman, renenwing its ability to heal by first using it to blight and afflict. His best and worst impulses prove horrendous to boyhood enemies and friends, to the beautiful stepsister he loves, to his own mother. But the lure of the caduceaus is irresistible, and Billy inevitably becomes Dr. William Michaels - a man of immense wealth, the director of a research foundation, a national celebrity. Even so, he can maintain his omnipotence only be creating a plague every bit as monstrous as AIDS; and ARVIDS, of course, is treatable only with the instrument in his sole possession. Yet after a series of careless mistakes, the skein of Dr. Michaels's cures and curses begins to unravel, and, ripe for retribution, eh begins his plummet toward a gruesomely fitting end.« less