num_pages: 224
description: Emotionally numb, crippled with insomnia, and caught in a frightening, abusive marriage, Helen Brindle believes that God has recently left her. She spends her days performing banal domestic chores in front of a blaring television. On the BBC one day she watches a self-help guru expound on, among other things, the "rules" of masturbation and the importance of "interior lives." Edward G. Gluck, she discovers has developed a program that guides lost souls toward contentment. Helen seeks him out, hoping to find an answer. Instead she discovers Gluck's own sadomasochistic obsession, and his profound shame and disgust. And what they both encounter, painfully, is the love each fears and both yearn to embrace.
language: English
title: Original Bliss
titlecomplete: Original Bliss
characters: Edward E. Gluck, Helen Brindle
genres: Fiction, 20th Century, Contemporary, Womens, Literary Fiction, Female Authors, Short Stories, Novels
ratings_count: 442
places: Spain
publisher: Vintage