K-Pax: A Novel

a novel

Plot

When a new patient is brought to a hospital claiming to be an inhabitant of K-PAX, the hospital seems to be just the place for him. But how to explain his supernatural powers? Virtually everybody who meets this extraordinarily gentle and emphathetic character is changed for the better by him. In taped therapy sessions the "alien", prot, is asked about life on K-PAX -- in which he paints a consistent and credible portrait of a glorious Utopia painfully unlike our own and yet so possible, could one only erase from human nature its greed and cruelty. It becomes easy, even desirable, to believe in prot's identity and homeland. But prot insists that he must return home. As his announced date of "departure" approaches, staff and patients alike are thrown in turmoil: If he is mad, what will happen when that fateful day arrives? If K-PAX is for real...please may they come along, too?