The Remainders eBook James K Clarke Dorothy Mills

Download As PDF : The Remainders eBook James K Clarke Dorothy Mills

The Remainders is fiction based on fact. It is dark, but it also offers hope and humor, and in the end, the good guy gets it done.

At the height of The Cold War in 1950, the CIA launched a covert operation code-named MK-ULTRA (pronounced emkayultra).

Established to counter Soviet and Chinese progress in brainwashing and interrogation techniques, MK-ULTRA's ultimate objective was to "find a way of controlling an individual to the point where he or she would do as they were told, even against such fundamental laws of nature as self- preservation."

The CIA funded experiments at more than 185 non-government sites in the U.S., including 15 hospitals, 40 universities and four prisons. Faced with a barrage of public outcry in 1953, the CIA moved the brain thrust of MK-ULTRA to Montreal, Canada. More specifically the Gothic mansion known as Ravenscrag. Long a home for one of Quebec's wealthiest families,
Ravenscrag was donated to the city of Montreal by the Allan family and subsequently renamed The Allan Memorial Institute in memory of two sons lost to war.

Behind the wrought iron fencing, beyond the gray stone walls, shrouded in secrecy behind closed doors--unknowing victims came and went. Used, without their knowledge or consent, as guinea pigs in one man's macabre pursuit of medical immortality.

"Brainwashing techniques" paid for by the CIA and the Canadian government.

While my tale is fiction, it is based on fact, and great pains have been taken to tap into the period this piece is set — each and every reference to the experiments conducted under Dr. Ewen Cameron's campaign thoroughly researched.

It is well documented that during Cameron's tenure, patients' minds were wiped clean with mega-doses of mescaline, Benzedrine, caffeine, alcohol, sodium amytal, cocaine, amphetamines and barbiturates combined with largactil.

Shock therapy; weeks of induced sleep; sleep depravation and psychic driving— replaying for days on end recordings of the patient's own voice or selected music, which in the words of the infamous Dr. Cameron, were "the gateway through which we might pass to a new field of psychotherapeutic methods."

Cameron was a big believer in LSD, and depattering was a three-stage process wherein patients progressively, invariably, lost track of time and space.

History shows Cameron's work resulted in a disturbance of memory so massive, so far reaching, "there is no way to measure it."

From 1940 to 1960 the Canadian government issued The Allan Memorial Fund in excess of $500,000. The institute also received another $60,000 from a CIA covert operation called the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology from 1957 to 1961.

So much for the facts.

On the fiction front, THE REMAINDERS is the story of Vinegar Joe, one of the few remaining victims of MK-ULTRA. Set in and around Vancouver's historically steeped Gastown area during the early 1960s, THE REMAINDERS chronicles Vinegar's bid at beating back the ghosts of his past and reclaiming control of his life.

Of the few Remainders (former patients of Ravenscrag) still roaming the streets of Vancouver, it is Vinegar Joe and his tenacious grasp on reality that serves as the catalyst.

As resilient as he is troubled, Vinegar proves too much for Eva Bryte, the misguided killer created by the CIA who's come to Vancouver to eradicate those to whom she is bound, those she believes besmirch the name and memory of her parents Dr. Ewen Cameron and nurse Audrey Bryte.

And true to Vancouver winters, the rain is always there.

The book is largely set in The Umbrella Club, a watering hole and metaphor for that society of social outcasts with connections to Ravenscrag.

Along the way you will meet the likes of a slow-witted but loyal barkeep named Rockethead Reed; the scheming snitch Picasso, and Annie Nault, a level headed lady in her late 40s who works for Big Brother but is in love with Vinegar Joe.

This novel is dedicated to the memory of my best friend, the late Ron Hogue.