Making God Laugh: A Memoir of Psychiatry, Dublin, and the Electric Chair

Preorder new trade paperback to be released 3/11/25. Signed by the author. Add personalization in the Notes section at checkout.

An entertaining memoir by the author of The Stephen Hawking Death Row Fan Club and Model Child.

"A skilled storyteller, Goodwin uses anecdotal vignettes to drive the book's engaging narrative... a perceptive and frequently entertaining look at the life of a psychiatrist." - Kirkus Reviews

“On a bright June day in the late 1980s, I found myself strapped into an electric chair.” So begins R.C. Goodwin’s captivating memoir, which encompasses his life from growing up in the Midwest during the 1950s to his ivy-league foray at Yale, majoring in history, and on to studying medicine in Dublin. Returning to the U.S., he undertook a psychiatric career despite initial misgivings about the specialty. Practicing psychiatry in the suburbs, prisons, and at a major university, he embarked upon a journey in which his patients included corporate executives and serial killers, teenagers and centenarians, alcoholics and drug addicts, and those addicted to online pornography. We learn something of the side trips in this journey—the joy, pain, humor, frustration, angst, and unending surprises along the way—and how all this affected his personal life as he dealt with the same universal issues his patients try to deal with.

All sales final.