In his recent novelsincluding his awardwinning Hopeful MonstersNicholas Mosley has investigated the patterns that govern our mental and emotional lives and the possibilities that we have for change and nowhere has he explored such themes with greater concentration than in Catastrophe Practice. A unique book whose characters and concerns are the basis for the other four novels of the Catastrophe Practice Series Hopeful Monsters Imago Bird Judith and Serpent Catastrophe Practice is remarkable both in its form three plays with prefaces and a novella and in its ability to convey the complexities of thought. Drawing upon catastrophe theory to examine the discontinuities in human personality and our tendency to progress suddenly rather than smoothly the six characters of Catastrophe Practice struggle to disrupt traditional ways of being.