Disturbing the Peace (1975)
by Richard Yates
292 pages(Kindle Digital Edition)
Genres : Fiction, Mental illness, Contemporary
Rating : 4/5
I have always thirsted to read a book like this one! I read it real slow and lived through every page. The author kind of hints at what is going to come before it does .. and yet I wasn't ready to face it with a stoic calmness. The main character and his quick downward spiral into madness .. his unquenchable drinking problem and subsequent lock down in a mental asylum are very tangible and well portrayed.
A salesman John Wilder from New York with a stable marriage and a son goes berserk in the mind. He has a drinking problem and is easily irritated. He stays for a brief period in a psychiatric ward. He visits a shrink who prescribes him strong medicines and warns him repeatedly to lay off his drinking. He also attends a few AA(American Alcoholics) meetings to help him off the addiction - but uses them as a front/ruse to leave home at night and either go drinking or meet up with his secret lover/girlfriend Pamela. John and Pamela set out to California to make a career in the movies. We already see that Pamela is an opportunist and has an unreliable partnership with John. Still he is a sucker for her affection,he - with an ongoing psychiatric treatment, unstable mental temeperment - ditching his wife and son and the enduring marriage they have .. sets out on the journey to CA. There he quickly devolves and descends into madness .. with no hope for escape.
His hallucinations and schizophrenia is quite scary and one cannot help but feel an ounce of pity for a crashed house of cards - his normal life!
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