KENNEDY AND I

Why does Simon Polaris hide a gun in the drawer of his desk? And why does he set fire to his chair? Why is he searching for his wife’s lover? And why on earth does he bite his dentist? For the simple reason that Simon Polaris isn’t happy. No, he’s not happy at all. Or could it be that the others are all crazy? All the so-called ‘normal’ people with their carefully-planned careers, who pretend to be so grown up but are just plain incompetent? Who can say? Because Simon loves his wife and refuses to reconcile himself with all the bad things in the world, he tries, gradually, to regain his taste for life. Even if this means going through hell and back: fighting flies; jumping off a boat wearing a funeral wreath instead of a life-saving ring; moving his office into the cellar – even aiming a gun at his psychiatrist, Dr. Kuriakhine… Neither his wife nor his children, Thomas and Alice, nor even his friend and publisher, Paul Gurney, can help him get a grip on what is commonly known as a mid-life crisis. It can affect anyone, anytime – and it just might be useful to know how Simon Polaris manages to cope with his.