Rhinehart, Luke

(US, 1932– )

Rhinehart, who trained as a psychologist, is best known for his comic novel The Dice Man (1972), which quickly established a cult following and has been reprinted twenty-seven times. The novel, which begins with the tone and detail of a realist narrative but becomes more fantasy-driven as it goes on, is a satirical account of trends in American psychiatry. Told from the point of view of ‘Luke Rhinehart’, a bored psychoanalyst, it describes how, acting on a drunken impulse, he begins to make decisions on the throw of a die. Pleased by the moral, sexual, and social liberation these random choices give him, ‘Rhinehart’ continues to consult the dice, basing a new therapy on the idea as his own life disintegrates. Rhinehart has written several other novels, including The Search for the Dice Man (1993). He is a teacher of Zen.

Bret Easton Ellis, Jay McInerney  SR