Pharmakon
Viking, July 2008
"I was born because a man came to kill my father."
William Friedrich, an ambitious professor of psychology at Yale in the early 1950s, has stumbled upon a drug that promises happiness -- and that can make him a famous man. His is a humanitarian effort; an
attempt to relieve Americans of suffering, and the early results are so
promising that Friedrich stakes his future on it. But when his
experiment goes awry and a research subject, a brilliant and troubled
Yale student, commits murder, the consequences will haunt him and his
family forever.
Pharmakon, which in Greek
means both "poison" and "cure," is an epic invocation of the quest for
bliss, for love, for family and prosperity, and all of the betrayals
that follow. Through the eyes of the youngest son, Zach, we follow the
Friedrichs from the well-ordered suburban life of postwar America
through the chaos and freedom of the counterculture into the
drug-fueled, media-crazed eighties and beyond. In William Friedrich,
Wittenborn has defined the archetypal American patriarch: a miracle
worker and source of strength to everyone except those he loves the
most. Honest, insightful, and ruefully funny, Pharmakon
captures formative moments of the twentieth century and the telling
traits of an American family. It is also a layered, thoughtful search
behind the veil of psychopharmacology as we know it today -- a tale not
only of the consequences of research, but the complex personalities,
appetites, and struggles that created it.
paperback | ISBN: 9780670019427 | Publication Date: July 2008
Reviews:
"In Pharmakon, Dirk Wittenborn
has given us a fascinating portrait of a family living on the edge in
the barely post-medieval age of 1950s psychopharmacology. With both
victims and perpetrators, pioneers and innocents, the saga of the
Friedrichs will stay with you long after the book has been read."
--Richard Price
"Wittenborn has given us a haunting illustration of the Tolstoyan maxim
that every unhappy family is unique in its unhappiness, though in fact
no one who has ever been part of a family can fail to feel pangs of
recognition as they follow the saga of the Friedrich family across
three tumultuous generations. Pharmakon is an ambitious and memorable novel."
--Jay McInerney
"A brilliant portrait of a young family of the 1950s, possessed of the
particular qualities of postwar America -- optimism, prosperity, and
security -- and the inevitable loss of innocence as both country and
family encounter the challenges of maturity. Dirk Wittenborn's
provocative book is sharply observed: a subtle and wise fable of our
time."
--Susanna Moore
"An old-fashioned novel about a modern subject -- set in the past but
completely relevant to where we are today. It might remind you of
mid-period John Irving, but gentler. And just when you've settled into
a groove the book takes surprising -- sometimes shocking -- turns.
Beneath all the pain there's hope coursing through these pages, and in
the end don't be surprised if you find yourself moved to tears."
--Bret Easton Ellis
"Eerie, authentic, and always with heart, Pharmakon is a slow-burning triumph."
--Marisha Pessl
