The parasite person is not who we think it is, at first. This psychologist, Martin, who is a lecturer at some mundane university, succeeds in getting a year off, in order to finish his PhD: writing his thesis. With all this time on his hands, he's got writer's block. One day he is interviewing a young woman who had attempted suicide half-heartedly, and this young woman will change his life. Ruth ledbetter comes barging into his house in the middle of the night, telling him her theory about parasite persons: persons who feed off a depressed person. She gradually enthuses martin, who decides to make it the subject of his thesis.
But the real parasite person is Martin. He left his wife Beatrice because she was boring, and took up with and moved in with helen. Helen is a school teacher; she is also a foolish woman. Here is this boring man, and she serves his every need, shortening her sleep intervals, typing up all his notes and interviews, and for what -- to serve this man-baby?
1982, Hardcover, Doubleday and Company
P.55:
" 'I won't be a minute,' she assured him soothingly, though in fact she would be several minutes, the electric kettle having conked out and the teapot still being full of yesterday's cold tea-leaves. 'would you like some biscuits as well?'
'if you like,' Martin muttered, meaning 'yes, only I don't want to be the one who's being demanding,' and buried his face in the pillow, an invalid, sick with insomnia, and entitled to be waited on by those who are not thus sick.
Helen, grovelling under the bed for her slippers, wondered, fleetingly, was it always like this? Did happiness always mean not getting enough sleep?
A most cursory survey of her own past experiences would seem to indicate that the answer was, indubitably, 'yes.' When you were happy, you got home after midnight. when you were happy, you had to get up and wash your hair before breakfast, because there was no other time. When you were happy, you spent the early hours of the night making love, and very often the early hours of the morning too. At those periods of your life when you have a man to sleep with, you don't actually sleep much at all. This was something that no one ever told you, you had to find it out gradually, for yourself."

Ruth even barges in on beatrice, Martin's ex-wife. Beatrice calls up Helen to complain to her.
P.100:
"...' "a parasite person," that's what she called me, if you please! A parasite! Me. And it's not even as if I was getting the bloody alimony yet, it may be months, my solicitor says! A parasite, indeed! How would you like it, sly, foul-mouthed little bitch hardly out of her teens standing there in your own drawing room calling you names like that?'
'well, I wouldn't,' said Helen reasonably. 'I'd be very annoyed. I'd ask them what they meant by it -- what it was all about? Look, beatrice, she must have said something... Didn't you even find out her name..?'
'Oh, her name! Now what's the use of that, I'd like to know, when I'd never heard of her in my life before? Ruth, she called herself. Ruth-bloody-leadswinger or something of the sort, in case that leaves you any the wiser, it doesn't me..!'
In Helen's mind, everything suddenly clicked into place. the ledbetter interview. Ruth ledbetter, the girl Martin had interviewed in hospital after her suicide attempt. So that's who it was who turned up so mysteriously in the middle of the night, had seemed so mysteriously familiar. It was her style of speech that was familiar, not her person: all those slangy abbreviations and throwaway americanisms that had been so wearisome to decipher and transcribe."

But Helen is troubled by what she learns from typing up the interviews. She happens upon, in her school staff break room, a newspaper where the obituaries section catches her eye. Two of the names in the obituary section are names of people that Ruth interviewed, having taken over that part of Martin's work.
And here is one more instance where we see what a pendejo Martin is:
P.130-1:
"Two people have died. The words would not leave her alone, hammering away inside her skull in and out of season. Two of Martin's research subjects, for the interviewing of whom he, martin, was strictly responsible, even though he might choose to delegate the job -- two of them were dead. He, and no one else, would be held responsible -- and rightly -- for any malpractice that might be going on.
Reluctant though she was to re-open the recent quarrel -- already Martin seemed to have got over his burst of ill-temper and was humming contentedly as he moved around the room assembling glasses, bottles, ice, for their usual evening drinks -- Helen knew she must speak. It could not be left like this. It just could not.
'Darling,' she began -- and already her voice was so full of nervousness, reluctance and downright fear that the innocent little word stopped him in his tracks. He stood, tray of glassware in hand, as if in front of a camera. 'Darling, I don't want to upset anything, I'm as thrilled as you are that it's all going so well -- that Ruth's getting you such marvelous interviews. but had you thought at all -- I mean, it's quite usual in these surveys, isn't it? -- had you thought of the odd call-back on the people she's interviewed? Just as a matter of routine, I mean, the way they do it in market research -- the supervisor calls back on, say, 1 in 10 of the addresses just to..'
'just to what?' martin's voice was so cold, so menacing, that Helen found herself shrinking back into her corner of the settee, unable to look at him.
'And since when have I needed a little o-level schoolmarm to explain to me the proper way to run a survey? I might remind you, helen my dear, that I was working on public opinion surveys -- including market research projects -- when you were hardly out of primary school! When I need you to instruct me on the elementary principles of this branch of social science I shall ask you, thank you very much!' "

Martin is a sloppy, lazy researcher. And he is so moronic that he thinks he can actually "pull the wool" over the doctoral committee's eyes:
P.159-60:
"Keeping up the pace: that was the problem now. The heady joys of success -- the euphoria, the incredulous Joy -- were all that he had ever dreamed. What he hadn't quite envisaged was the way you had to keep at it to fulfill the ever-mounting, ever flattering demands to which, in his jubilation, he kept saying 'yes'... And 'yes'... And again 'yes.' Already he was committed to an article on 'parapsychology and the parasite person'; and another, for a business magazine, 'parasite persons in management.' most urgent of all, there was a piece for readers roundabout on 'the parasite person in myth and legend.' they were actually going to pay him for it, and in his headlong delight he said that he could produce it by the weekend.
Myths. There must be hundreds of myths illustrating this theme.. thousands of them. Why spend hours -- days -- weeks -- pouring over those weighty historical tomes that filled shelf after shelf after shelf of the humanities wing of the library? One myth is as good as another. Anyone can make up a myth. Slipping a new sheet into the typewriter, he found his fingers almost doing it for him:
'there is a story' -- (well, there is now) -- of two bullocks who broke loose from the abattoir and went careering around the town, to the terror of the population. No one dared try and catch them, everyone rushed inside and bolted and barred their doors. Within half an hour, both bullocks were back at the abattoir, lowing to be allowed in...' [um, no.]
Where will I say this story come from? Hell, why should I say anything? A story like that wouldn't be copyright, even if it was genuine. If they lean on me about it, I'll say venezuela. Who wants to go to venezuela? It's delectable places, like yugoslavia, that you have to be careful about, where proving you wrong can be combined with a delightful holiday, sea-bathing and scuba-diving and the rest." [Um, no.]

The ending was fabulous. I absolutely loved it. Here is true karma visited on Martin the pendejo. A must read for Misandrists. ( )