Affliction
By: Russell Banks.
Edition: 1st HarperPerennial ed.
Publisher: HarperPerennial
Published: 1990
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 355
ISBN-13: 9780060920074
Subjects: Mentally ill -- New Hampshire -- Fiction; Brothers -- New Hampshire -- Fiction
Genres: Fiction.
Description: Wade Whitehouse is an unlikely protagonist of a tragedy. Wade looms in one's mind as a bluecollar American Everyman afflicted by the dark secret of the macho tradition, his tale told by his articulate, equally-scarred younger brother. "Part thriller, part psychological study, part indictment of the American way of violence." Wade Whitehouse is an improbable protagonist for a tragedy. A well-digger and policeman in a bleak New Hampshire town, he is a former high-school star gone to beer fat, a loner with a mean streak. It is a mark of Russell Banks' artistry and understanding that Wade comes to loom in one's mind as a blue-collar American Everyman afflicted by the dark secret of the macho tradition. Told by his articulate, equally scarred younger brother, Wade's story becomes as spellbinding and inexorable as a fuse burning its way to the dynamite.