Pharmakon Book

A rich story of parents and children, and the question of why things happen as they do - the characters intertwined inextricably with man's apparently relentless quest to fix ourselves with chemicals.

William Friedrich's family is relentlessly stalked by the not-so-friendly ghost of Casper, a psychotic young man that took part in a pharmaceutical study developed and conducted by Friedrich in the early 1950s, who subsequently kills Friedrich's study partner and whose presence continue to haunt the family in the following decades.

Choices, even well-intentioned ones, reverberate for years. William's life will forever be changed, and his family affected for years, by the choice he makes to develop and test the world's latest-and-greatest feel-good drug; his wife, Nora, makes the choice to dissuade a young Casper from his early plans for suicide, thus involving him in her husband's research.

Throughout the story we are reminded again and again of the many facets of life affected through the double-edged sword of pharmaceuticals - legal or illegal. Chemical combinations that at one time seemed to smooth over mental and emotional disorders (perhaps facilitating an end to so many of the brutish methods once used on the mentally ill); coke, speed, and other drugs appeared to enhance endurance and produce ecstacy in the user; Dristan, Contac, Ritalin and others relieve characters' physical symptoms of living in a world that they often seem ill-equipped to handle.

All of this set against the whirlwind background of time itself, America in the early 1950s to the 80s, and told through changing viewpoints and narration.

There are many stories being told in this book, many reasons, many actions and the oh-so-far reaching consequences; much more than one simple summary can give.