The Electroencephalographer Couldn't Cry

Welcome to the world of the Electroencephalographer. Adam Turner is a middle-aged, married, Washington-based physician. By all appearances, he is a conventional and well-organized neurologist, devoted to the routine, clinical interpretations of EEGs (brain waves) at a university hospital. In truth, he is a fearful man, depressed and tormented by the idea of his death, obsessed by recurring and somewhat paranoid philosophical ruminations of his own wretched condition. Moreover, he sees life in general as a hellish experience. Turner seeks out extramarital involvement, but that provides him with only brief and unsatisfactory release. Confronted with the impending death of his close friend Jean, his depression deepens; despair made worse by a peculiar lifelong handicap ?- the inability to cry.