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Loading... Afflictionby Russell Banks
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  grheault | Jul 20, 2007 |  I consider this Banks' best novel. A hard and unflinching examination of deeply flawed characters, Banks is fair, respectful, compassionate, and almost loving with them. This was made into a good movie, but read the book first. The book depressed me for weeks, but maybe it was the "good kind" of depression. (  ) abirdman | Jul 4, 2007 | This is my favorite Banks book that I've read. The movie was good, too. Don't read it if you're depressed, though. (  ) wordygirl39 | May 24, 2007 | An excellent examination of the roots of family violence. The fall of intelligent man stuck in a deadend town with a deadend job and a taste for alcohol is beautifully and painfully told by his brother, the college professor. An exceptional book by a great author, this is the penultimate example of Banks' New Hampshire. The movie (which I saw prior to reading the book) is a worthy rendition of the novel. (  ) piefuchs | Nov 12, 2006 | A story of sons who were beaten by their fathers. Not pleasant--deep and dark and damaged. ( ) seventime | Nov 1, 2005 |  no reviews | add a review
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(The Atom Egoyan adaptation of Banks's brilliant novel The Sweet Hereafter perfectly captures its brooding beauty, and Affliction may be Paul Schrader's finest film since he wrote Taxi Driver.)
Affliction transmutes Banks's painful past into fiction. His divorced protagonist, Wade Whitehouse, 41, is imprisoned by fate in Lawford, New Hampshire, a hell frozen over. He digs wells for chump change, lives in a trailer, drinks, and alienates his daughter by dragging her to a miserable Halloween costume party. In two weeks' time, Wade demolishes his pitiable hopes of family happiness, drawn into a rigorously plausible series of disastrous deaths. In flashbacks to his Dad-abused youth, we see how Wade wound up such a Dostoyevskian clown.
Banks has a mind of winter: when Wade sees his dead parent, the scene unfolds with the cold logic of ice-crystal formation. The story is narrated by Wade's kid brother, the family's sole escapee to college, in a cool, distanced way. Both brothers contain aspects of Banks, but each breaks free of autobiography. This is one haunting novel.
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:57 -0400)
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Wikipedia in English
Indignity to incendiary, the invisible man, so ordinary he's a rarely portrayed character, this book makes him visible in superb psychological detail that produces empathy. For that reason it is an important book. (