From
the inside flap
“. .
.It begins when Richard Alderman becomes a born-again Christian and starts to
tear apart the fabric of his life.
“Arthur,
his teenaged son, rejects the church; Robbie, several years younger, adopts his
father’s views. Caught in the middle of the ensuing web of lies is Lois
Alderman, wife and mother, trying to do right, trying to keep her family
together in the face of hypocrisy and inevitable tragedy. When an attempt is
made to regulate Arthur’s love life, an unhappy situation becomes frighteningly
worse.
“Like
vultures preparing to feed, the Aldermans and church elders circle and attack,
tearing at each other and unveiling at each other and unveiling disconcerting
notions of justice.”
Review
People
is
a good, pressure boiler novel, made incisive by Highsmith’s usual, eagle-eyed
take on human light and darkness simmering just below its suburban smiles and
passive-aggressive invasions, with characters whose emotions, actions and consequences
are thoroughly explored and shown─without becoming tiresome. While murder and
crime are not the immediate vibe of this deft tale of family and community
relations, religiosity, hypocrisy, and eventual sociopathy, People,
although lighter in subject matter, sits well with Highsmith’s often darker
works, and is worth reading. I would suggest that those with religious inclinations
avoid this novel, as the “Christians” in People are not shown in a sympathetic
light─not that they deserve to be.
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