Detailed plot synopsis reviews of The Good Samaritan |
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Laura, a very f'd up psychopath, works for a suicide prevention hotline called the End of the Line. However instead of trying to stop people from killing themselves, Laura secretly tries to encourage people to do it. The book opens showing her on the phone with two nutty people who she persuades to jump over a cliff and kill themselves.
I have to pause and say that this is a GREAT beginning for this book. First of all, it is so original! Most literature books repeat the same plots over and over--adultery, adultery, adultery, messed up childhood, love triangle, adultery, adultery, adultery. This was refreshing because it was truly original.
This simple scene creates a lot of interest for the reader. Immediately we want to know about Laura. What kind of person would want to kill other people in this way? What kind of twisted person would try to abuse a suicide prevention hotline to actually do the opposite of what the service intended? She's crazy, yes, and totally unsympathetic, but we want to understand her origins.
Click here to see the rest of this reviewThese opening pages, with original drama, start the book as a compelling read.
The next few chapters detail the process in which Laura convinces people to kill herself. How she has researched all the methods of killing oneself and found the most efficient ones. How she analyzes callers to see who might be goaded into killing themselves. How she walks a fine line not actually suggesting they kill themselves at first but attempting to lead her victims into it.
Her two most recent victims were a guy named David, and a pregnant woman named Charlotte who was clinically depressed. I guess you could say that Laura helped kill not one person or two people but two and a half! That made her very proud. Laura actually enjoys their suffering, and wishes she could watch them die.
A few months later, a guy named Steven calls her and says he wants to kill himself. This gets Laura excited.
Meanwhile, in her personal life Laura is recovering from cancer and is worried that her husband Tony does not want to bone her. She takes some "slimming tablets" that cause her to make very smelly shit in the toilet. But it is worth it to Laura, feeling that if she loses weight that Tony might want to bang her again.
Laura has a retarded boy named Henry. She visits him often in the hospital. We are told that he is retarded due to complications during his birth.
Police come to the End of the Line suicide hotline. They are suspicious because people have been killing themselves after calling the hotline. You might expect this because after all it is a suicide prevention hotline and not all suicides are prevented, but apparently a LOT of people have been killing themselves and police are suspicious, which makes Laura understandably nervous.
Laura has a daughter named Effie. Is Effie short for fuck? We don't know. Anyway, Laura hacks into Effie's email and finds that a boy named Thom has sent her a nude photo showing his erect p_nis that he wished to effie Effie with. He wants to effie Effie, get it? Heh heh heh.
Laura arranges for the photo to be posted everywhere on the internet, including the school website. The results are predictable. Thom gets sent away and ostracized.
Laura still worries that because of her cancer that Tony won't bone her. She puts her hand into his pants and jerks off his p_nis. Tony demands to know what she's doing. Heh heh heh. Tony doesn't know what Laura's doing. Didn't he ever take sex ed classes in school?
Anyway, Tony tells Laura he doesn't have time to bone her. Have you ever met a man who didn't have time to bone a woman? Didn't think so.
Steven calls again. He tells Laura he wants to kill himself, but he wants Laura there to see it in person. The idea makes Laura sexually excited. She is wary about the danger of being discovered, but can't resist agreeing to make a personal appearance. She would get so much more pleasure from seeing Steven die in person.
Laura repeatedly calls Steven David. David was one of her previous victims who she had an emotional connection to. She actually knew David and David was her friend.
Laura has a flashback to the time when she was a kid and her mother died of some illness and her father, who was depressed, had Laura help him crush a lot of pills and pour it into drinks for the family. While her Dad and her two sisters drank the drinks, her Dad didn't permit Laura to drink. Then they went into the next room and locked the door. It took Laura days to realize they had died!
This is the incident that caused Laura to be a really f'ed up. When she got older she realized that she had unwittingly helped her father slaughter the rest of her family.
Why did the Dad want the entire family to die simply because his wife died? Not explained. Most widowers don't kill themselves when their wives die. Why did the Dad want Laura to live when he killed her other sisters? He said that Laura was the "anchor" or strong one who could or should survive.
