True story of six New Yorkers who sign up to a group therapy course to change their lives.

"It's painful to listen to yourself, at least in the beginning, but the alternative is endless suffering," says Dr. Lathon (a pseudonym), the therapist of this group. This book is not a self-help text, says author Paul Solotaroff, but a "work of narrative journalism" documenting six people living through a year of group therapy. The people and their problems are real, but their identities are disguised to protect their anonymity. Solotaroff, who was a participant in an earlier group with Lathon, is a creative, accomplished writer who brings the people to life visually as well as orally. Lathon "looked like a man with his own Learjet, or the maitre d' at a restaurant you couldn't afford." You get to know Lathon's humor, insights, and commentary on his patients. His number-one rule is hard work; next is fearless honesty. The six group members are intriguing, witty, dramatic, and in pain--like characters in an Edward Albee play. Their troubles run the gamut: substance abuse, infidelity, embezzlement, emotional abuse, loneliness, unfinished business with parents. If you've been wondering how group therapy works and what you might learn about yourself, you'll get plenty of insights. If you just like to eavesdrop on other people baring their souls of troubled, intimate details, you'll get that here, too. --Joan Price

From Publishers Weekly
In this perceptive account of how a group of strangers came together over the course of a year to regain a sense of equilibrium in their fast-track lives, journalist Solotaroff provides an inside look at the "talking cure." The occasionally combustible cast of six patients, afflicted with a laundry list of private demons, childhood traumas, addictions and phobias, duel with one another and with their volatile group leader, psychopharmacologist Charles Lathon.

This unique book takes readers behind the closed doors of a group therapy session--introducing them to six patients and the therapist who guides them through their emotional minefields. Group reads like a novel--and "might make the most well-adjusted among us want to pull up a chair and start evolving" (Time Out New York).

This "inside look at the 'talking cure'...will keep readers riveted up to the last page." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A fabulous story...absolutely riveting." --Booklist (starred)

"Solotaroff manages to make us care about these people--and root for their recovery." --Elle

"Group is a great book...the writing and personal drama are so compelling that reading Group is like racing through the pages of a mystery." --Denver Rocky Mountain