How to Cope with Suburban Stress

I had to think a long time about what to write before adding my review, yet even now I find myself at a loss for words when trying to describe how powerful David Galef's novel was. For any individual who has grown up in any suburban setting, the novel is unsettling, its social issues hitting close to home on so many accounts ranging from an impending divorce to a frightening child abduction. Galef has, in my eyes, created a pedophile more frightening than Humbert Humbert. Definitely a novel worth reading, but very much one to read in caution as there are many triggers. Keep the tissues with you.

The devil has come to Fairchester, an upper-income enclave of Americana, where crime consists of a bat-wielding malefactor who goes about knocking post office boxes off-kilter. The devil takes the guise of Ted Sacks, a pedophile who visits on-line chat rooms to swap notes with similarly inclined monsters and rigs up his bathroom as a personal pleasure palace...should he ever actually work up the nerve to lure a child into his lair. At the same time Ted is embarking on his flights of sexual fantasy, Michael Eisler is trying to cope with a different kind of suburban stress, the impending failure of his marriage and the toll that is taking on his young son, Alex. Mr. Galef expertly interweaves the two storylines--we know a collision is imminent and that Alex will be involved in some way. The tension ratchets up higher and higher and the author refuses to avert his eyes from what must happen, without exploiting (soiling) the reader. Give Mr. Galef credit for a book of remarkable courage and integrity. It's strong stuff, especially for parents, but a novel of skill, poise, frankness and maturity.