When the real you is someone you don't know, then you sing the songs of the maniacs.From her office at a mental health institute outside what appears to be Miami, a troubled young woman counsels deeply disturbed clients while coping with her own heightening concerns. These include frightening consciousness lapses, violent memories of a high school sexual relationship, a menacing stalker, and an annoyingly arousing visitor who may or may not be insane. All this on a single stormy day at a time when a new mental health disorder has become epidemic and is threatening to distort memory and identity, unmooring the validity of reality itself.The search for illumination becomes an eerie struggle as she attempts to understand her past, present, and true self. The hypnotic pull of the story lies in the mystery of the storyteller herself and her murky, uneasy sense of doom. A seductive and chilling novella, Songs of the Maniacs relies on clear prose and uncluttered imagery to delineate a fascinating descent into the abyss beneath the lush tropical surfaces of contemporary American paradise.