Spectacular Happiness

by Peter D. Kramer

A daring, controversial novel that The New York Times hailed as "good fun" and full of "rewarding surprises," Spectacular Happiness entertains while raising challenging questions about what constitutes the good life. Booklist calls it a "stunning first novel."
Chip Samuels is an English teacher, part-time handyman, and devoted husband and father. He is also a one-man protest movement. Egged on by an ex-girlfriend, Chip has been blowing up trophy homes along the beaches of Cape Cod. The fastidiously crafted explosions capture the public's imagination -- and rather than being reviled as a terrorist, he finds himself the idealized center of a media circus.
Darkly intelligent, provocative, and compelling, Spectacular Happiness has been praised both as riveting storytelling and as masterful social criticism by one of the most respected observers of contemporary American culture.

Genres: Fiction, Adult

320 pages, Paperback

First published July 17, 2001

About the author

Peter D. Kramer is the author of eight books, including Ordinarily Well, Against Depression, Should You Leave?, the novels Spectacular Happiness and Death of the Great Man, and the international bestseller Listening to Prozac. Dr. Kramer hosted the nationally syndicated public radio program The Infinite Mind and has appeared on the major broadcast news and talk shows, including Today, Good Morning America, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Charlie Rose, and Fresh Air. His essays, op-eds, and book reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and elsewhere. For nearly forty years, Dr. Kramer taught and practiced psychiatry in Providence, Rhode Island, where he isEmeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University. He now writes full time.

Reviews

[Stacy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Got through 100 pages of this book and decided there are too many other books I want to be reading. Too dry for fiction, not an interesting enough topic to spend non-fiction time on.

[Kassandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was about an anarchist professor dude who starts blowing up gaudy, ostentatious homes on Cape Cod in a "Free the Beaches" movement, to reclaim private beaches for public use. There were many things that seemed promising about this book. Local setting, real issue re: snooty rich summer people and their houses, written by a Brown professor... The writing was lovely, with interesting word choices and phrases etc. The entire book was written in second-person narration, as a letter from the man to his son. The problem for me was that the plot was a little murky? unclear? I guess it was about some sort of character development about the dude and getting his life in order? There were discussions about anarchism that I personally found uninteresting. The whole thing about him becoming a tv host I did not understand. In the end, I did enjoy the relatable setting and interesting words, but I don't think I would recommend this book to others to read.

[Marc Kohlman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book as part of an English course I had taken the Spring of last year on Protest Literature. What really made the novel appealing to me was Chip Samuels love for his son and explaining to him his reasons for doing what he did. I compared their relationship much to that of my own with my Dad, who I rarely saw as a kid. I did admire Chip for his belief that the beachfront belongs to all, not just the wealthy. Also, his practice of neutrality in not taking stands on either side. At its heart, this is a novel filled with imagery. The characters are used as televisual images in stories you would see on television. The images filmed are used as incriminating. Chip and Wendy walking along the beach together, Sukey and Chip's interactions and when he teaches Hank how to read (referencing psychological and literary visual representations). This includes descriptions of the explosions themselves and how they should look. There is a moral emptiness of the spectacle Chip Samuels makes more tangible, so he can mold it. it is based in personality with a connected element in the spectacle itself. There are no right or wrong non-emotional reasons behind the bombings. To Chip it is a vendetta for nature, how beaches should look. The bombings bring out the houses "personalities" and stories once they have been blown up. This raises the question: Is the house morally empty? All the images are connected and constructed. Television in the novel is also a spectacle and does not define a person as well as morally empty. Chip rebels against that which I admired to a degree. The beach houses are spectacles too. They just do not belong. That is why Chip destroys them. He pushes things normal people cannot get done. Even his lawyers are creative legislature spectacle too. On page 40 for instance, there is a very good grasp on the morality of violence. The moral sense that drives Chip on, the clash between idea and the instance. He only cares about what is morally fair. Broken families and the destruction of manifestation of the character also make up a great deal of this novel. Hank's character I related with quite a bit, primarily with having an absent father who was still loved by him. Similar to Hank, I read a lot during my Summer vacations. Sukey also shares the emotional and physical gap when her father left. Her satirical style was what struck most to me about her character. She and Chip had a tight connection and complemented each other well I thought. Giampicolo was a Femme Fatale. The relationship between her and Chip was one fated to hit the rocks in my opinion. Anais was in some respects similar to Giampicolo. I did not like it when she left who she was to embrace an Anarchist self, plus leaving her son and causing Hank to leave his father. Yet she does have her good moments where she cares about Hank's actions and starts taking her duty as a Mother seriously. This story is about a man who does not consider the moral repercussions of what he is doing. He has a lack of remorse, only he is portrayed as that in the media publicly. No one in the book really owns anything, only what they have within themselves. Ownership of one self conflicts with ownership images of the self play a key part in the story. While this is a novel filled with anarchy, I find myself relating to a few of the characters, even Chip somewhat and asked myself "What separates acting for what is right from acting for your own self interests?"

[Nuri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like other, non-fictional books of Kramer's as well, but that had not made me expect good fiction-writing from him, and I approached the novel skeptically at first, but it didn't take long before I was interested. The narrative is conventional and steers away from experimentation, the language is sparse yet adequately smart, and (thankfully), Kramer does not attempt to isolate himself from his authorly self when writing; psychotherapy-inspired observations, recalling moments of "Should You Leave" abound in the book. As for influences, the most obvious parallels I could see were with DeLillo (particularly White Noise-era).

Is it a literary milestone? Not really, but doesn't fall short of most critically-acclaimed novels either.
A fresh approach to anarchism and consumerism (if you're fine with the narrator's self-proclaimed naivete, that is) with a well-developed, breathing narrator.

[Rochelle Tangonan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was reminded of this book in reading Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. The difference is that while I felt this book made sense during the process because the acts were given justification, the ending was a bit underwhelming for me. Fight Club on the other hand was confused with the storytelling, but it was put together in the end. Their biggest similarity is that both lead characters are radical and wanting change while they struggle.

[Abigail · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a god first novel of a non-fiction writer. The discussions of demonstration and spectacle were interesting, though at times the political tone fell flat.

As a card-carrying feminist, I must add that this ultra-lefty guy was pretty damn condescending towards the women characters. Oh, and he also slept with each one of them.

But the book was good overall.

[Malbadeen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't remember much about this book except thinking wow, this is unbelievable (as in it's not believable at all, not as in those fireworks are unbelievably great) and that he shouldn't have ventured to fiction yet (or maybe ever)?

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kept my interest enough that I finished, but overall left me disappointed. Reads too much like the attempt at a novel by an academic that it is - too much explication of ideas and name-dropping, not enough showing of ideas through other means.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gives great insight into anarchism in its most sincere form.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Borrowed from Karen.
ecoterrorism with an absurdist ending.

[Kara · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good story with a pretentious and macho New England narrator. Enjoyable, but doesn't give the pure pleasure of an Ozeki or Hiassen.