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In this daring and ebullient novel, Peter Redgrove tells the story of the mysterious Institute of Facilitation, which is haunted by the elusive Director, Jacqueline Dimitrios, MD, who may be the richest woman in the world. She may also be dead, murdered, as her staff often pose as Madame Dimitros, and are instructed to deny they are not Madame. Undaunted by her mystery, three suitors enter the Institute on the pretence that they are patients, and require to be ‘facilitated’ until they are well again: they are in fact intent on marrying Madame’s money. They are told that they must find in themselves a madness so strange that it will make Madame laugh aloud; then and only then will she marry the fortunate suitor. The Institute was founded, the suitors discover, by a Dr David, who was blown to pieces in a terrorist bombing, but who may still be consulted in the cellar; and the members of staff include ‘Sir’ Geoffrey, a nude man who has discovered a new use for an old organ; and Daniel, a red-haired homosexual dwarf beemaster masseur who is mortally allergic to stings. Much of the set-up may be a put-up job to conceal Madame’s murder; nevertheless, the woman in charge declares that she will marry one of these men, and the reader is invited to guess who that might be, and why he is chosen. In this novel Peter Redgrove combines a fresh look at the mystery story and the psychological thriller with a strategy that declares that whatever desperate people may invent in fantasy, it can never be quite untrue. The book comes with a new introduction by Norman Jope. ‘With The Facilitators we are deep in wizard’s country. The only measure of sorcery is whether or not it works, and when used in fiction it faces a double challenge, the fiction has to work too. Peter Redgrove is one of the few living writers known to me who can make this happen. He is not so much a mystic as an explorer into undiscovered human territory.’ (The Guardian) ‘Peter Redgrove is a farceur given to psychic high-jinks beneath which runs a subsong of wild wisdom.’ (New Statesman) Peter Redgrove (1932-2003) worked in several interlinked fields: as a poet, novelist, playwright, and in psychological practice. He believed creative, psychological and scientific work are aspects of the same common study, and his insights are profound, illuminating and constantly exciting. He received many awards during his life and was especially honoured by receiving the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1996.
