Word: crutchers
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Crutcher bases the protagonist of the novel, Wilson Corder, upon himself. Corder is a child therapist who attempts to decipher what has happened to abused children by talking with them. He gets them to cooperate by using a controversial examination method called play therapy--he has children act out their trauma through toys...
...book's most suspenseful moment occurs when Dr. Banner's henchman takes Corder's family hostage aboard a boat somewhere on a river in Oregon. Fortunately. Corder was a champion long-distance swimmer in college--hence, the title. By this point, it is clear that crutcher's talent does not lie in developing plot--it would have been more believable had his family been taken hostage in their home and Corder had been a commando in the military than to have him swim across large bodies of water...
...Crutcher describes a complete psychological profile of the killer and smoothes over the end of the story but leaves the reader without answering one itching question he posed in the beginning: why was Jerry's sister kidnapped in the first place and by whom...
...Crutcher brings extraordinary insight about clinical psychology to the story--the only aspect of the book that warrants such a description. However, The Deep End is not a great novel because the plot lacks structure and he fails to tie up its loose ends...
...Crutcher also has numerous tangential stories within his plot, concerning felons who were abused when they were young--Crutcher even has one save Wilson's life. It seems that the author wants to encourage psychologists to accept play therapy with the same authority Upton Sinclair exercised on the meat-packing industry...