Spectacular Happiness by Peter Kramer

Spectacular Happiness

Peter Kramer

What provokes Chip Samuels, an English teacher to blow up the beach houses of the wealthy along the Cape Cod seafront? This is a book of ideas, how we live, how we bring up our children, our politics and our ways of surviving life in the modern world. It's a book that makes you think, posing questions rather than dictating answers.

Extract
I recognize poignancy in the downfall of seawalls and houses. They are all falling anyway, giving way to the primal elements, time, wind, water....To stand in such a home in winter is to feel the grandeur and folly of human enterprise.
Parallels
  • Mao II by Don De Lillo
  • High Rise by J G Ballard