Author(s): Hugh Mackay

Fiction

This is the fifth novel from the pen of Australia's best-selling social analyst. Set in a typical contemporary suburb, Ways of Escape is the first-person story of Tom, a clinical psychologist who is losing patience with his affluent, perfection-seeking clients. Divorced and struggling with professional burnout, he's open to the possibility of radical change. He allows himself to become reckless with a client intent on seducing him, leading to a charge of professional misconduct and the humiliating prospect of deregistration. He is caught up in the disappearance of a neighbour who had recently left his wife and children. And a lighthearted distraction comes in the form of an offer to write for a motoring magazine - an experience Tom finds liberating. Two streams of Tom's life then intersect when he agrees to advise one of the candidates for election as chancellor at a boutique university.