Trial 23 by Harold Kish - Book review

Trial 23 is a first-person account of a man’s spiral into complete lunacy. The main character, known only as John, wakes to find himself in a white cell. He can’t remember who he is or how he’d gotten there. His memories are entirely blank.

After John is introduced to Dr. Windhelm, John learns he has been in an accident and has amnesia, and that he’s at Wentworth Psychiatric Hospital. Dr. Windhelm promises to get John’s memories back.

When John is sent to get a brain scan, his environment suddenly shifts and he finds himself in a horrifying world of monsters and tragedy. As these visions and hallucinatory trips become more frequent, John fears he’s losing his mind.

He can’t trust his reality or anything the doctor is telling him. But as he goes from one terrifying scene to the next, he realizes the visions are actually his own memories – only turned into gruesome nightmares. He must fight to the end of the twisted labyrinth in his mind to solve the mystery of who he is. 

This book is one of the coolest mental hospital books I’ve ever read. Told through the journal entries of John, Dr. Windhelm, a mousy nurse, and a sadistic orderly, we get to experience John’s horrible descent into madness and his graphic visions (aka his twisted memories).

The book is fun, humorous, terribly depressing, and at times brutal. It’s a trip into one man’s pathetic life and the trauma he suffered, and what these memories would look like on a super-fueled drug trip.

The doctor is menacing and evil. The monsters are crazy and totally unique. And the orderlies are the sadistic cherry on top that make the climatic explosion so much fun. Great novel from a new author. I’ll be looking out for more from Harold Kish.