Ghost Points: A Novel
by Geffrey von Gerlach
Category: Fiction

Acupuncture is a metaphor for life-- you find the point that is the most painful and drive a needle into it, piercing it with finely-honed consciousness. Randolph Mayer is a failed man in his own eyes. He had been an accomplished photographer and internationally known, yet at age seventy, he finds he has outlived his celebrity, his friends and worst of all his investments. For him, suicide is a reasonable solution. A young medical student inadvertently intervenes, robbing the old man of his graceful escape, and, as an act of contrition, decides to employ the legendary 13 GHOST POINTS of the ancient art of acupuncture to try and revive him. As each of the thirteen needles penetrates the old man's flesh, a memory held in that region of the body springs in vivid detail into Randolph's unconscious mind, allowing him to once again experience the passions in his past. GHOST POINTS is an end of life crisis, a story of how one man is allowed to retrieve the moments of his life that have been obscured by the passage of time and buried under the weight of disappointment, to understand, to know and to finally believe that he had not failed, but rather had the experience of a truly remarkable life. The ancient Chinese believed that the demons of memory are held in the body and can be retrieved by means of acupuncture. Kyle Randall believes it's worth a try to revive the old man whose suicide attempt he cut short.