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Pharmakon, Or The Story Of A Happy Family: A Novel (2009)

by Dirk Wittenborn(Favorite Author)

3.5 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0143115677 (ISBN13: 9780143115670)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Penguin Books

review 1: I loved, loved, loved this book!! Wow--what can I say!! This novel portrayed a look at a family in the 1950s whose father was into psychopharmacology. He was involved in an experiment with a fellow female researcher when a test subject went off the deep end and it lead to a catastrophic event. The father never really recovered; this taints everything he does from here on out. Reading this book, just when you think you are into a groove, you get jolted out of your seat due to a cataclysmic turn and you are left shaking your head. The end of the book is expected, but not really. It takes the reader by surprise, but maybe you knew it was coming. Either way, you may find yourself sniffling. It's okay. That just means you were enveloped in some really, really good wri... moreting.
review 2: The hook to this novel piques one's interest for the first hundred pages, presenting itself as a historical psychological thriller. Once Wittenborn baits the reader to commit, he switches the entire premise of the story to an underdeveloped and cliched coming-of-age story that skips the maturation of the main character. The voice skips through time and perspective without purpose. The author's lazy writing repeats unnecessary phrases and omits large chunks of narrative as though he cobbled together a story from scraps of notes designed for a more ambitious work. His false details reek of a lack of research. Perhaps if he had cared enough to develop the story he wanted to write, he would not have had to resort to juxtaposing a more marketable opening with the rest of the novel. In the end, those few answers Wittenborn gives to the questions posed in the first few pages leave the reader wishing time had been better spent. If you want to finish a book with feelings of anger and frustration, "A Man In Full" at least has literary quality. less

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