After disastrous experiences in law and education, Jake Kazmareck tries to disappear into a menial job picking melons on a farm in the Rio Grande Valley.
An estranged friend tracks him down, however, with news that their mutual bosom buddy is not dead but rotting in a Mexican prison. The stage is set for his rescue.
Jake, Connors McClain, and Artie Cavazos's friendship was forged during an almost fatal canoe trip in which only Artie's genius for survival kept them alive. Their brush with death, however, unleashed in Jake a primitive beast that has never stopped plaguing him.
A few years later, the three engage in an attempt to rescue Artie's uncle and family from the Mexican drug cartel that had forced his uncle to work for them. Jake mistakenly attributes their failure, and Artie's death, to Connors's betrayal.
When Connors later contacts Jake, he shares some startling news. Connors, now the Texas attorney general, has discovered that Artie is still alive and imprisoned in a Mexican jail.
The harrowing rescue is successful, but Artie's experiences have effectively destroyed his spirit. Jake and Connors now reconciled, they enlist the aid of psychiatrist Judith Neuwirth to try to piece back together Artie's shattered self.
In the process, Jake is again confronted with the beast in himself. Will he learn to accommodate it, or will it destroy him? Is it an essential part of us that must be accepted? Or must it be fought to the death?
About the Author: Jan Notzon is a novelist and playwright who has made Charlotte, NC his home since 1994. In addition to The Id Paradox, he has also authored the novel And Ye Shall Be As Gods, which recounts a brother's fight to rescue his beloved sister from the clutches of despair and his lost love from the prison of catatonia. His first novel, The Dogs Barking, is a coming-of-age story set in a sleepy backwater Texas border town in the 1950s, through the dislocation of university life in the '60s and on to the raw, frenetic power of New York City. He has also written seven full-length plays, a one-act, The Forsaken, which was produced in two different venues in New York City. His play The Cosmological Constant was workshopped and presented as a staged reading at Actors' Theatre in Charlotte, NC by the Applebox Production Company. His play When Good Men Do Nothing was a finalist in the Dramarama Competition in San Francisco. He has also written one children's story, The Gift of Arbol Ceiba.
