Black Days: a novel

Black  Days tells the story of Daniel Fassett, a Vermont man who crashes his vehicle into the Mad River on Christmas Eve, 1992. After nearly drowning, Daniel falls into a four-month-long coma shortly before his retirement date, and loses a significant portion of his pension. Depressed and financially strapped, he enlists the aid of a local semi-retired physician, Dr. William Butcher, to help him hibernate through the winter in a homemade casket housed in a backyard maple sugarhouse.??Despite Daniel's attempts to maintain secrecy, word of the procedure eventually gets out -- and that is when trouble begins.From across the country, folks eager to escape their woes reach out to Daniel and Dr. Butcher in hopes of becoming the next to pass a season in oblivion. Large sums of money are offered for the privilege -- but death, deception, and moral and ethical dilemmas that have no clear solutions wreak havoc on Daniel's life.