Bill McClausland

Now It's Inescapable Bill McClausland

He became self-deceptive and then had a realization.

Dr. Glen Coyle used to be an artist at what he does. In his office is a hand sculpture given by a patient whose hand he reattached.

These days, though, Glen is doing his best to keep his hands from shaking. He's on the run constantly -- from pharmaceuticals he's supposed to be prescribing for his patients. His wife is about to leave him. The DEA comes to pay him a visit. But when he's called before the hospital board, he knows his days of running wild have careened out of control.

Now It's Inescapable is a timely recovery story about a man in desperate search of love and oblivion in equal measure. Glen will do anything to avoid facing himself, and the title of the novel becomes a repeating mantra each time he gets cornered with himself -- and then ducks away. Glen is very good at wiggling out. Even after he's ordered to rehab, he takes off on a disastrous bolt to Baja California that takes him to the brink of self-destruction. He has hit the proverbial bottom.

Gradually, Glen faces the unresolved issues of his past: his neglectful and distant mother, his abusive military father, his war experiences in Iraq as a trauma surgeon, and the biggest gorilla in his living room-his addiction.

Once Glen fully commits to this fateful step, the world around him slowly reshapes to his new perspective -- the plastic surgery has its positive uses, he feels more empathic with his patients, he has embarked on a promising new relationship that he must take slowly. In the closing scenes Glen and his sponsor do a medical mission to Guatemala, and his tormented past is transformed into his best asset.