Fracassi, Philip - Don’t Let Them Get You Down

Even with therapy, Peter is taking a long time to recover. One soon wonders if he will ever truly get over the death of his wife two years earlier.
Anxiety attacks and disassociation from his previous normality are increasingly routine.
Peter is a trifecta of bad choices, bad decisions, bad luck. Meds, meant to help, cloud his judgment, impair his physical abilities.
Fracassi’s tale is unsettling, if not downright harrowing, likely to play havoc with grief stricken survivors, or those who have tumbled so deep into their pit that there is no view of the rim.
For all Peter’s missteps and calamities, and they seem to multiply, his character is not necessarily a one-note loser. Again and again, he does take chances. He attempts new directions.
His past, however, his previous life, holds him tight – then tightens.
Despair that overwhelms.
Fracassi’s style is brusque, clinical, almost journalistic. For readers, he does not bother with quotes, leaving them to figure who is talking, or if it is an internal dialogue, or a description.
For me, this is lazy writing. As more and more writers chase fewer and fewer readers, please ask yourself how many books you want to read lacking punctuation.
Yes, I know, artistic license. Or the continuing dumbing down of writing.