Not since D. M. Thomas’s bestseller The White Hotel has there been such a remarkable novel about women, hysteria, and the profession of psychiatry as practiced by men. Set in California and Mexico in the late 1950s and early 1960s, A Version of Love is a bizarrely riveting tale of transgressive desire. Its lead players form a precarious triangle: a psychoanalyst who sleeps with his patient; a female hysteric on the verge of being cured; and a loner in the Sierra foothills who goes panning for gold and then love. A dazzling achievement (Robert Olen Butler), a work of almost spookily controlled intelligence, A Version of Love is a breakthrough novel by Millicent Dillon, who deserves to be honored as an American master of fiction (Philip Lopate). A brilliant new novel. The assurance and economy with which she gives us this strangely gripping and powerful story…are the hallmarks of a consummate artist….Her finest work yet.–Diane Johnson