High

by Thomas Hinde

But the real substance of the book is the divisive parallelism within his central character, Maurice Peterson, who is also writing a book (which takes up half of this book) about Peter Morrison, a man equipped with exactly the same a wife and a clutch of children; an avid young inamorata; even an occasional consulting psychiatrist. At the beginning as at the end, Peterson is attempting to kill off Morrison but fails to do so. Perhaps because his alter ego is a far more successful secret swinger whose high (they both take a trip) is a far more vivid extension. Certainly many other alternatives suggest themselves along with the projection of the American libidream as ""perpetual ecstasy."" In any case the novel, along with much of which will be alien to the conventional reader, is an astonishing display of the elements of fission-fusion in the single-dual lives of Maurice Peterson-Peter Morrison.

Hardcover

Published January 1, 1986

About the author

Sir Thomas Willes Chitty, 3rd Baronet better known by his pen name Thomas Hinde, was a British novelist. He wrote under the name Hinde to avoid upsetting his father with his much acclaimed first novel.

His first novel, Mr Nicholas, was published in 1953. His second, Happy As Larry, the story of a disaffected, unemployable, aspiring writer with a failed marriage, led critics to associate him with the Angry Young Men movement. An excerpt from Happy As Larry appeared in the popular paperback anthology, Protest: The Beat Generation and the Angry Young Men.

Hinde published thirteen further novels before turning to non-fiction. After 1980, he also published books on English stately homes and gardens, English court life, and the forests of Britain, as well as histories of English schools.