The Wasties

the long version

"In The Wasties, Reuss gives us the story of Michael "Caruso" Taylor, a man who has lost his ability to speak and is gradually reverting to infancy. All of his most intimate relationships are redefined: His wife, Gina, must assume the role of mother; his day nurse becomes his nanny; and "Caruso" is reduced to drinking tomato juice through sippy straws and observing the world from a radically skewed perspective. Once a professor of literature, Michael's predicament is compounded by a deteriorating memory of his adult self, and he begins to "see" the famous - and often dead - denizens of his former learning in everyone from a bum in the park to a doctor in the hospital. Walt Whitman, John Muir, Ralph Ellison, and a host of others materialize before him as he tries to comprehend and articulate his plight. He calls his condition "the wasties" - but what kind of malady is it? Physical? Psychological? Or some sort of higher madness?"--BOOK JACKET.