Margaret and I

by Kate Wilhelm (Published by Little, Brown)

Nominated for Best Novel in 1971

Someone is thinking about Margaret. “I wondered about Margaret, and what she would do next. I didn’t care unless she went the route of drugs. They make her try and get at me sometimes, and that can be bothersome. She is so terribly afraid of me.”

Who so casually draws Margaret to the brink of hysteria – then, just as casually, tries to walk away?

Her subconsciousness does, when it becomes a living, breathing personality with an ego all its own – setting the stage for a remarkable transformation scarcely envisioned by the science of man.