Gerard X MacAvoy

Witch Hazel Gerard X MacAvoy

Gerard X. MacAvoy's first novel, Witch Hazel, is the fictionalized account of his very real life as a 'Chosen One.' Chosen, that is, to have been violated by cancer, not once, but twice at the age of 18 in 1972 when cancer treatment was at its most brutal, and again at 43 when it wasn't much better. The deleterious events on Gerard's uncircumcised, Irish Catholic, Brooklyn born, and New Jersey raised, fictitiously handsome alter ego, Xavier Mack, slanted his outlook on life and death, love and hate, God and sex, and all the other spineless oddities that crawl under our skin and warp our perspectives while we are dreaming. Armed with an ungodly sense of humor, a truckload of challenged memories, and bolstered by an illegally enhanced, mischievous imagination, MacAvoy has crafted this completely original story. Imagine Holden Caulfield with cancer, or perhaps Ferris Bueller. It's a story that takes you deep down into the belly of the beast, where irradiated truth and a glimmer of hope shine brightly.