In the Throes

In the Throes explores the awakening of intelligence and the coming into awareness of an evolutionary mishap on a forbidding apocalyptic planet.The story follows eponymic Gruff, the first linguistic/metaphysical awakener of his species, as he navigates identity, mentation, and ontology in relation to the Gruff's natural humankind.Combining the writings of Freud and the spiritual truths of Krishnamurti, author Mathias B. Freese depicts the Gruff as an evolutionary dark creature—disfigured, maimed, instinct-driven, and grotesque—until he attains self-awareness and transforms into a self of artistic expression and wisdom.As the title suggests, the reader identifies with self-struggle as it surges toward awakening and is moved by the apotheosis that closes the book. The nuanced each one of us is an artist if only we take our selves in hand and construct a life of artistic expression. The closing chapters sing to us of Isak Dinesen's observation that an artist is never poor.A metaphor of the evolutionary self, In the Throes is a time-processed journey into awareness—our destiny as a species.About the AuthorMATHIAS B. FREESE is a writer, teacher, and psychotherapist who has authored nine books. After his first novel, The i Tetralogy on the Holocaust, his second work, I Truly Working Through the Holocaust, won the Beverly Hills Book Award, Reader's Favorite Book Award, and was a finalist in the Indie Excellence Book Awards, the Paris Book Festival, and the Amsterdam Book Festival. In 2016, A Memoir of Two Summers, his first memoir, received seven awards. The following year his second memoir appeared, And Then I Am Gone. In 2019, Nina's Memento Mori, a highly regarded memoir, was published. In 2022, Freese published Again. Again and Awakening into Awareness — Essays and Stories.