A Disorder Peculiar to the Country [Paperback]

Product Details

• Paperback: 237 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743286219
• ISBN-13: 978-0743286213
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,089,426 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Running Good and then the Wheels Fall Off, February 27, 2007

By 

Taggart Murphy (Jakarta) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Disorder Peculiar to the Country: A Novel (Hardcover)

I agree with the reviews that label this as 'uneven'. I found both the 9/11 materials and the divorce storyline compelling and the characters interesting; Marshall's breakdown was good stuff. The ending has three baffling elements to it [BRUTAL SPOILERS!], the a) shifting point of view to the daughter (whose tone is not distinct enought to render it believable), b) episode at the party which, COME ON!, does this odd set-piece really fit with the rest of this novel?, and c) the alternate reality ending which effective vaporized much of the rest of the resonance of the book. I stayed up late reading the end of this and was ready to toss it off my deck at the end. As I say, the wheels come off.

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Courageous and brilliant, October 15, 2006

By 

City Girl (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Disorder Peculiar to the Country: A Novel (Hardcover)

Everything about this book was unexpected and revealing. Kalfus shatters our ideas about heroism in the wake of tragedy and shows in hilarious detail how we can't help but be who we are: a nation of self-obsessed individuals who only contend with the world around when our own inner turmoil doesn't get in the way. You have to read this book.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It Could Have Been Great, November 12, 2006

By 

UES - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Disorder Peculiar to the Country: A Novel (Hardcover)

Joyce and Marshall Harriman might be the only two New Yorkers who have a reason to celebrate on September 11, 2001. Joyce was supposed to be traveling in one of the hijacked planes and Marshall worked in the South Tower. Each expects the other to be dead, but out of sheer luck, both of them survive--much to the disappointment of the other, since the couple is going through a bitter divorce. Forced to stay together in the post 9-11 New York, the Harrimans live a nightmare that Kalfus deftly and bravely turns into the blackest of comedies.

The author, in my opinion, makes two mistakes that nearly ruin what otherwise would be an outstanding novel: he makes Joyce a willing participant in Marshall's attempt to stage a suicide bombing in their apartment. That Marshall would be pushed to such an action is believable; that Joyce would try to help him kill himself, her, and their two children is not.

But the biggest mistake is the ending. While most of the novel takes place in a New York that we remember well, Kalfus makes the very bizarre decision to set the ending in a historical background that is entirely fake. It's a shame, because until then I believed the characters (except for the scene mentioned above) and thought they were well set in New York and in that specific and troubled historical time. But when I got to the end, with its bizarre events in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East, I just thought, "huh?"