The Stillness Trilogy
by Richard Lee Ferguson
"People do not reflect themselves in running water; rather, they reflect themselves in still water. Only that which is still is able to still the stillness of others." - Zhuang Zi
Book I: Stirring the Stillness
What if your father, an American afflicted with schizophrenia, was trapped in China by a civil war, unable to escape because of the Japanese invasion, and swept up in the search for a mysterious woman, while hallucinatory voices in his mind, calling themselves God and Goddess, argue about his fate?
Book II: Stilling the Stillness
You have inherited your father's schizophrenia and you now find yourself in another war at another time--Vietnam--assailed by the same God and Goddess intent on fulfilling the trajectory begun by your father. And what are the two conflicting agendas of God and Goddess?
Book III: Stillness
Stillness, the third book in the epic Stillness Trilogy, finds schizophrenic protagonist Michael Powers descending deeper into the horrific abyss of his illness. Now institutionalized, he struggles with the nature of reality, experiencing psychotic episodes that direct him to question whether he is a murderer, whether he is still a young soldier in Vietnam, whether he is even alive. The mysterious deaths of three treating psychiatrists lead to his escape and an agonizing series of events that bring into question age-old prejudices about the nature of life, of humanity, of time, and of reality itself.
Amidst the torture of this terrible affliction, questions, doubts, and uncertainties persist . . . .
