Invidicum

Twenty years in the making, Michael Brodsky's opus, Invidicum, is a sprawling satirical novel about an experimental drug for "Envy Disease" and those involved in its clinical trials: participants, drug developers, psychiatrists, technicians, hangers-on, advertisers, etc. Brodsky states, "I think this book is my 'richest.' It did start out . . . propelled by a preposterous desire to write something more accessible—to achieve a breakthrough.” The new novel is "a comical commentary on the outmoded myth of the 'deep dark secret' (as it infests/infects both the domestic scene à la Strindberg or Albee and the international one à la le Carré or Clancy)."