The New Yorker: Fiction cover image

Akhil Sharma Reads Joyce Carol Oates

The New Yorker: Fiction

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Frontal Lobotamy, Reversible Psycho Surgery

"I could almost see my zombi materializing before my eyes," says quintin. "There is a way mamm's face creases and collapses when she eyes", he writes of the moment his father asked him if there was anything under his bed, or in those bedclothes,. And i said, thanks, dad, but i'm not hungry. I guess i've already eaten." He continues: 'My parents hoped for me to become a scientist like dad, or a doctor, but things had not turned out that way' The book also contains diagrams of an operation called trans orbital labotamy which involves severing nerve fibres at the base of the frontal lobe.

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