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A review by ryan_lieske
Bullet Park by John Cheever
3.0
Actual review: three and a half stars.
This is an odd, odd book, and probably won't be to everyone's taste. I imagine most readers might grow a bit frustrated with it during the first fifty pages or so. However, if you surrender yourself to the (admittedly off-kilter) narrative, you will soon find yourself swept up in a mordant, and at times shocking peek at the American psyche in the middle of the 20th century.
I don't want to give anything away, but the book follows three characters, whose fates are all intertwined in very bizarre ways. A sick, depressed teenager, his prosaic and benumbed father, and the man who plans to kill one of them.
This is a book that strips bare the facade of normalcy, and roots around in the befuddled, protean minds of these men to try and get at what makes them tick. It's rarely pretty. Or sympathetic.
Others on here have analyzed this book more efficiently than I, so check out the other reviews. I can only say that I enjoyed this dark, sometimes funny, sometimes melancholy novel about humans searching for solace and reason, and rarely finding either. I don't think it's the masterpiece that some do, but that isn't to say it's not still worth your time.
This is an odd, odd book, and probably won't be to everyone's taste. I imagine most readers might grow a bit frustrated with it during the first fifty pages or so. However, if you surrender yourself to the (admittedly off-kilter) narrative, you will soon find yourself swept up in a mordant, and at times shocking peek at the American psyche in the middle of the 20th century.
I don't want to give anything away, but the book follows three characters, whose fates are all intertwined in very bizarre ways. A sick, depressed teenager, his prosaic and benumbed father, and the man who plans to kill one of them.
This is a book that strips bare the facade of normalcy, and roots around in the befuddled, protean minds of these men to try and get at what makes them tick. It's rarely pretty. Or sympathetic.
Others on here have analyzed this book more efficiently than I, so check out the other reviews. I can only say that I enjoyed this dark, sometimes funny, sometimes melancholy novel about humans searching for solace and reason, and rarely finding either. I don't think it's the masterpiece that some do, but that isn't to say it's not still worth your time.