Robert A. Wicklund will appear at Eagle Harbor Book Company at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 12 to discuss his book, “The Gated Island.”

An octogenarian Danish-American fisherman is reluctantly relating a dream to a big city psychoanalyst. The doctor regards his patient — Mr. Rasmussen — as beset with anxieties, but quickly sets aside his psychoanalytic theories, convinced that the patient’s condition stems from Mr. R.’s island residence. The doctor develops an intense aversion to this nearby island he has never seen, and proceeds to station a young psychology student there, whose task is to probe into the social forces impinging on the aging patient.

The student quickly develops his own aversions and neuroses and the doctor is driven to come up with a theory.

Wicklund, originally of Seattle, has been a professor of social psychology over several decades. He has held positions at the University of Texas (Austin) and in Germany, Italy and Norway. His interests in the ebbing and flowing of the human psyche are brought to bear on the theme of culture and alienation, in this story.

Visit www.eagleharborbooks.com to learn more.