After the Good War: A Love Story

by Peter R. Breggin

In spite of overreaching comparisons (Crichton, Orwell) & a high price paid by publishers for this 2nd novel (omnivores may remember maverick psychiatrist Breggin's The Crazy From the Sane, Lyle Stuart, '71) this is just friction-fiction about what has happened by the time you reach the year 112 After the Good War, after the Red Tide & the Dollar Green Mildew. After the radiation-eradicated, not quite, Hebrew Disease which Historian Rogar is researching to learn that it's just a Plague of Unhappiness--Guilt, Anxiety & Shame. Here supposedly frenetically enjoying the NOW life via their Pleasure Packs are assorted unthinking NOW Americans altho Rogar is beginning to think--tincture of the Hebrew Disease--that all isn't well in this pleasure dome with psychedelic Koolade--certainly not among the blacks in the Zoo or the derelicts in the simulated ghetto. Many of the doubtful features of our now America are strafed & there's a lot of centerfold sex all the way thru. Before Rogar & one J.A.R.D. Gambol, Chief Psychologist for Female Wishfulfillment, take off for Israel in a rocket & land in another kind of reality. No, not like Crichton, not like Orwell, more like Barbarella.--Kirkus (edited)

235 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Peter R. Breggin MD is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and former Consultant at NIMH who has been called “The Conscience of Psychiatry” for his many decades of successful efforts to reform the mental health field.
His work provides the foundation for modern criticism of psychiatric diagnoses and drugs, and leads the way in promoting more caring and effective therapies.
His research and educational projects have brought about major changes in the FDA-approved Full Prescribing Information or labels for dozens of antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs.
Dr. Breggin has authored dozens of scientific articles and more than twenty books, including medical books and the bestsellers Toxic Psychiatry and Talking Back to Prozac.

Reviews

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

After the good war, is truly a love story. The main characters find love with each other in a dim and terrible world where actual love doesn't exist. This is a book of hope, and desire, and the willingness to look past all the negativity to find actual love and move on. I strongly recommend this book. It is a gem.

[Erik Graff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Breggin is a psychiatrist with a libertarian bent like that of Thomas Szasz who has written many books against psychosurgery and pharmacological psychiatry, one book about the CIA and two science fiction novels. This one extrapolates from current psychiatric control practices to a future totalitarian state. Unfortunately, Breggin is not a very good novelist.