Homunculus

When a man can’t achieve intimacy with someone else, such as a wife, he ends up achieving it with himself, which is no good. Hector Owen is well aware of his problem. He’s a washed-up playwright whose imagination and creative impulse nevertheless have failed to wane in spite of his efforts to deny them. With a lackluster career behind him and a failing, sexless marriage in the Appalachian town to which he has retreated, Hec suddenly finds himself in the company of his own creation, a nasty, yet frequently charming homunculus calling himself Robin. And Robin, once freed from his lifetime of confinement within Hec’s over-stressed mind/body, has a dangerous agenda that includes sex, love and ridding Hec of his lovely wife. Both literary and science fiction, Homunculus moves the Frankenstein proposition into the realm of psychosis. Is Dr. Frankenstein more culpable for the terrifying actions of his electrically energized monster than Hector Owen is for those of the glib, droll homunculus to whom he’s given birth?