Camp Concentration by Thomas Disch

(Caution: Minor Spoilers)

A very good triumph-of-the-spirit story, told in excerpts from a rather unlikable person's journal. Contains some moderately interesting science fiction ideas, a great boatload of esoterica, hippies and Viet Nam era paranoia, and one great lesson for writers.

The story takes place in a vague alternate reality in the early 70s. Robert McNamara is president, and the United States is invovled in some vague global conflict, and is probably not behaving too admirably. There's a hint of Uncle Sam using germ warfare, and the protagonist, one Sacchetti, has been imprisoned for being a conscientious objector.

He writes a diary to keep from going mad behind bars. For no reason, however, he is transferred to one of those secret underground government prisons, and finds himself housed with geniuses and polymaths. Only, they weren't always that brilliant. Turns out they've been injected with a drug that increases their thinking ability off the scale. One problem, though, and it's a big one: the drug kills its user within nine months.

The inmates are allowed anything and everything except their freedom. So, they occupy their time by producing plays (Faust), studying medieval mysteries (alchemy), analysing the drug responsible for their death sentences (mutated syphilis), and putting Sacchetti through all sorts of linguistic hoops. The prison is run by a hapless but ruthless general, and all the inmates, including Sacchetti, are forced to speak regularly with a brusque psychiatrist, a woman named Brusk, and our protagonist is encouraged to continue his journal. Except that it will be regularly read, by just about everyone in the prison, it seems.

Oh, and halfway through the book, it's revealed to lesser imaginative readers that Sacchetti himself has been infected.

Sacchetti goes temporarily mad, but pulls it back together.

His friend, Mordecai Washington, dies during a "seance" held with prison officials and prisoners.

The psychiatrist disappears.

An insane physicist and his group of grad students join the prison, with the sole intent of developing more powerful weapons of mass destruction, with the help of the drug. He and Sacchetti spar and verbally torture one another for a good chunk of the book.

And as Sacchetti's illness progresses, his genius seems to be seeing patterns in the outside world, "the Museum of the Weird," as he calls it, collecting clippings of odd happenings out on the surface. Then, his realization: Brusk escaped, infected with the specially modified syphilis, and has been quite focused on spreading it over the last couple of months.

Disch builds up the sequence of events so that the reader knows a shock is coming. And Sacchetti's uncovering of Brusk's activities clearly amounts to one. But, the novel's not over.
The physicist has the evil warden's ear, and as the pages of the novel dwindle, the two plus an antogonistic guard drag our writer to the surface, to feel one last time the breeze against his face.
But since this is written as a journal, you know our writer won't be executed.

What happens?

A really neat twist is revealed up on the surface. A nice revenge story, with all the bad guys getting their comeuppances. Sacchetti is able to overcome his illness, but not in any way you can think of. Truly original, and the last two or three pages really redeem a generally pessimistic and sanctimonious novel. In conscience I won't reveal it. You'll just have to check it out for yourself.

The inherent advice for writers? What did I take away from Camp Concentration? Easy. Build up and keep building up to something big. Then, throw a few decoys, especially a large one, at the reader. Finally, on your very last page, sock them over their heads with the really neatest twist you ever thought of.

It'll make your book worthwhile. And it might keep it in print after thirty-five years.