Tushinski's debut novel is a HARROWING AND COMPELLING descent into one man's world of interior rage, self-reconstruction, and reconciliation with the world. Tushinski's prose, bold and transformative, demands close reading, and rewards it.

ASTONISHING...RIVETING...The reader is guided forward by Tushinski's clear-eyed, luminous prose. Amazingly, we participate in Michael's journey toward self-knowledge in a way that feels totally authentic and emotionally true.

INTRIGUING AND FRIGHTENING...an exciting read.

TAUT AND GRIPPING...will have the reader literally gasping with shock...A masterful tale well told.

A PASSIONATE NOVEL ABOUT THE PASSION OF CREATIVITY....Explores the mutable boundaries between genius and insanity, and between obsession and delusion. This tale of a man who yearns to make his mark through music is by turns wry, spooky, and aching.

Using his narrator's memory gaps and obsessions, Tushinski creates his own synaesthetic symphonies and strange new melodies, a music of mania and loss. Van Allen's Ecstasy is A COMPELLING CONTRIBUTION TO THE LITERATURE OF MADNESS AND IDENTITY.

DARKLY LUMINOUS....Tushinski's novel evokes one young man's discovery of and longing for the mystic chord into which he would transform his life. Van Allen's Ecstasy risks austerity and an expressive restraint too challenging and complex to be mistaken for plainness.