Mark Rubinstein | Mark Rubinstein Blog

“I Have Forty Paid Enemies”

February 19, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Hell would freeze over before I’d do any cooking back then—especially since I lived alone in Manhattan. So I ate out every night.

I got to be friendly with some restaurateurs. One in particular, Jerry, owned a fancy steak house. Jerry was always ready with a handshake and a slap on the back. I was a “regular” who hunkered down on New York strip steak at least twice a week. Jerry usually comped me a glass of wine or an after-dinner drink. You see, Jerry was a great guy—and he was “connected”

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

Please share...

Plugged In and Feeling the Fiction

February 18, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Imagine wearing a vest-like device while reading a book, so that when you come upon a scene brimming with heart-racing tension, the vest emits vibrations to increase your heart rate and compresses your ribcage to convey the tightness felt by the protagonist in the throes of his peril.

Sounds like the stuff of science-fiction, but it is not.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

Please share...

A Shot in the Dark

February 15, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

It was 5:00 PM on a cold winter evening. I’d testified at a Workers’ Compensation hearing and was walking toward my car with an attorney. We were the only two people on a lonely, narrow street. The stores were shuttered. The neighborhood was in a devastated section of Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Suddenly, coming from across the street and down the block, we heard the cracks of two shots from a small-caliber pistol.

Read more on Psychology Today >>

Please share...

Storytelling Makes Us Who We Are, Novelist Tells Rotarians: Article in the Westport Minuteman

February 14, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Mark Rubinstein (Contributed photo)

“I always wanted to be a writer,” retired forensic psychiatrist Mark Rubinstein told Westport Sunrise Rotary last Friday. “People were telling me stories all the time … that’s partially why I went into psychiatry.”

Now he’s the storyteller, enjoying his second career, recalling 42 years of “listening to people’s tales of woe,” and working on his fifth novel.

Storytelling, he said, “makes us who we are … the novelist seeks to capture the reader, to take him from his prosaic world to one that gives him an experience he couldn’t hope to have in his daily life.”

Rubinstein spoke to his audience about his practice, about his genre, thrillers, and about writing.

Please share...

Silence Once Begun: A Conversation with Jesse Ball

February 10, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Jesse Ball’s new novel Silence Once Begun has just been released by Pantheon. His three previous novels are The Way Through Doors, Samedi the Deafness, and Curfew. He’s also written several works of verse. He won the 2008 Paris Review Plimpton Prize and is the recipient of a 2014 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship. He teaches at the Art Institute of Chicago’s MFA Writing Program.

Silence Once Begun concerns a Japanese fishing village where eight elderly residents have disappeared. Although he didn’t commit a crime, Oda Sotatsu signs a written confession prepared by Sato Kakuzo. He’s arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to death, yet remains inexplicably silent throughout this ordeal. The novel is written as a series of transcripts of interviews with those who knew Oda, providing different versions of what may have happened.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

Please share...

Review of “The Foot Soldier”

February 6, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

REVIEW OF “THE FOOT SOLDIER”

I admit, I initially picked this book to read thinking it would serve as an “easy” read in-between all the non-fiction on my reading list. I’m a bit of a war fanatic in the sense that I appreciate reading war materials, come from a military family that has served in several wars, and have worked with veterans. Still, I’ve never been in a war. So when I come across something like Mark Rubinstein’s “The Foot Soldier,” where he is able to take the reader inside of a war, inside of a humid jungle full of mosquitoes and predators and booby traps and probably most of all fear, I’m beyond captivated. Though it was a short read–less than an hour–I felt the pain of young Costa every step of the way, especially to the heart-breaking decision at the end. There are choices we have to make in our lives that are so mind-blowing, we can’t even comprehend them at that second. I think no one knows the meaning of that sentence better than the men serving in our forces, the ones who make hard choices every single day. So–was this the best book about war I’ve ever read? No. Was the ending the best it could have been? Not really. But did it grip me emotionally? Absolutely. I nearly choked trying to hold back tears while reading certain passages. My body tensed up subconsciously as I read with a fast pace about Costa’s journey serving “point.”I’m done with the book and my nerves are frayed, my thoughts are scattered, and I’m anything but calm. That’s what makes a good story.

Chelsea Woodring
Net Galley Reviewer

Please share...

A Good Story is Disturbing

February 4, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

As David Mamet told me, “If Hamlet comes home from school, and his dad’s not dead, and asks him how school was, it’s boring.”

As a psychiatrist and novelist, I’m aware that all good stories are disturbing. No matter how beautifully written or “literary,” a novel resonates deeply because the storyline tugs powerfully at us. It upsets, confounds and presents chaos, conflict, imbalance and upheaval — either within its character’s mind or circumstances.

As readers, we crave instability, disturbance, and uncertainty. They make us care about the characters and the outcome. We live vicariously through the anguish, turmoil and trouble the characters endure in a quest to reorder chaos — the disequilibrium — propelling the story.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

Please share...

Sex with a Former Patient

January 31, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

The temptations of the profession

Some years ago when I was single, Eva G began psychotherapy. She was unhappy because she was repeatedly involved in ungratifying relationships with men who were at least 20 years her senior. She was quite attractive, bright, articulate, and wanted to understand her need to date older men.

The psychotherapy continued once-weekly for about seven months. She quickly developed insight into the dynamics of her choices in men, and began making better decisions in her dating life. When it seemed Eva’s goals were reasonably met, the therapy came to an end. When we parted company, she knew the door to my office was open should she want to look deeper into her conflicts.

Read more on Psychology Today >>

Please share...

Fear Is The Common Denominator

January 28, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Writers are often told, “Write what you know.” Historical thriller novelist Steve Berry says, “Write what you love.” As a novelist and psychiatrist, I’ve become intimate with fear, and while I don’t “love” it, I do love writing about it. I’m not referring to ordinary worries or anxieties: things such as, will I get fired, or will the IRS audit my return? These are troubling concerns, but they don’t rise to the level of true fear—the kind brimming in psychological thrillers.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

Please share...

The Secret to Writing a Best-selling Novel

January 22, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

I was intrigued by an article in the British publication the Telegraph which seemed quite extraordinary. The piece was entitled, “Scientists Find Secret to Writing a Best-selling Novel.”

For a writer, what could be more arresting than such a headline?

Among other things, the article said: “Computer scientists have developed an algorithm which can predict with 84 percent accuracy whether a book will be a commercial success — and the secret is to avoid clichés and excessive use of verbs.”