Review
'An ambitious and memorable novel' Jay McInerney '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. Both victims and perpetrators, poineers and innocents, the saga of the Friedrichs will stay with you long after the book has been read' Richard Price 'An old-fashioned novel about a modern subject surprising - sometimes shocking don't be surprised if you find yourself moved to tears' Bret Easton Ellis 'What's best about Pharmakon is Mr Wittenborn's colorful, affectionate evocation of a complex family story A smart, eccentric coming-of-age story about an entire culture's maturation process, not just one about the workings of a single family. And Mr. Wittenborn is able to channel a lifetime's worth of psychiatric symptoms into one improbably universal story' New York Times
Product Description
It is 1950s America and madness is in the air. In a world where the 'cures' for craziness include coma therapy, cyanide treatment and full-frontal lobotomies, Dr. William T. Friedrich, a young and ambitious psychology professor at Yale, stumbles upon a tropical plant that seems to possess the secret ingredient of happiness. In Casper Gedsic, a fiercely intelligent, socially inept, near-suicidal maths student, he seems to have found the perfect guinea pig. But when his experiments goes awry, Casper's thirst for revenge turns murderous and his actions have consequences that will haunt Friedrich and his family forever…
