Pharmakon, or The Story of a Happy Family
By Dirk Wittenborn
(Penguin (Non-Classics), Paperback, 9780143115670, 416pp.)
Publication Date: June 30, 2009
Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook
Categories: Literary
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An honest, insightful , and ruefully funny look at the fate of one American family vis-à-vis the rise of modern psychopharmacology, Pharmakon, or The Story of a Happy Family is nothing less than a contemporary epic. The novel follows William Friedrich, an ambitious professor of psychology at Yale in the early 1950s, who has stumbled upon a drug that promises happiness to those who ingest it and fame and fortune to the man who can synthesize it. But when a brilliant and troubled research subject commits murder, the consequences will haunt Friedrich and his family for years to come.
Dirk Wittenborn is a novelist and screenwriter whose books have been published in more than a dozen countries. He is the Emmy-nominated producer of the HBO documentary Born Rich and the coauthor and coproducer of The Lucky Ones, a feature film about American soldiers returning from Iraq. He lives in New York City.
"A smart, eccentric coming-of-age story about an entire culture''s maturation process."
-Janet Maslin, The New York Times
" A rattling good tale . . . Wittenborn describes the mind of a cracked genius with great gusto and inventiveness . . . [Pharmakon''s] pleasures are many."
-The New York Times Book Review
"Epically entertaining."
-Vogue
" John Irving is a benevolent influence on Wittenborn''s work."
-The Times Literary Supplement
"No one who has ever been part of a family can fail to feel pangs of recognition."
-Jay McInerney
"A fascinating portrait of a family living on the edge."
-Richard Price
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