Darling don't you go and take that drug, do you think it's gonna make you change?

Novels, or modern ones at least, are very often negative forms of self-help books. While self-help books promote means of finding happiness, novels more often than not show how choices lead to bad outcomes. The reader hopefully will take the lessons and adjust their lives accordingly. I think a very good novel will often lead a person to reevaluate choices and consider how they might treat others better.

In Dirk Wittenborn's Pharmakon, the questions of happiness and the treatment of others are front and center. At the dawn of the pharmacological era, Dr. Will Friedrich, a psychologist with plenty of emotional issues of his own ambitiously pursues a plan to cure sadness with a substance distilled from a tropical plant. Things seem to go swimmingly and then they don't. The aftermath of the experiment leaves a path of destruction through two generations of Friedrichs.

Wittenborn is interested in the quest for happiness, which he makes out to be as elusive as the quest for Middle East peace. Nearly everyone in the book ends up compromising and settling for something they don't want. With more than one character given to abusing drugs and alcohol, he nicely compares legal means to find happiness with drugs to illegal ones.

The ending isn't terribly satisfying, but I enjoyed my journey with the characters. While much of the story is quite sad, or even tragic, the writing is crisp and often quite funny. Those looking for a skeptical look at the American Dream will find it here.