Roadwork

This is the third of the first four Bachman books.  This book has to do with a man who is horrified at the thought of the city building a road not only through his business, but through his house as well. Bart Dawes is a man that most people would probably not pay much attention to at first glance, ordinary looking, in his 40's, worked the same job for almost 20 years, middle class, etc. But, deep down Bart is anything but ordinary.  He is a man possessed with one single thought, destroying those who are seeking to destroy his life, regardless of the cast.

So over the course of this book Bart starts doing some strange things on the path to his destruction.  Which really started with the death of his son, this roadwork is just the proverbial straw. He buys several guys without realizing why. He fails to buy a new location for the laundromat to move to. He fails to move on a new house for he and his wife. He drinks to excess. Eventually the truth comes crashing down, he is fired, his wife leaves him, he hooks up with a couple of unsavory characters that get him in all sorts of trouble, and he commits acts of vandalism against the road construction company. In the end, he comes up with a brilliant plan to draw attention to this issue of eminent domain and to destroy all that he loved in the process before those bastards do it for him.

This is a beautifully crafted story that really sucks you in to the torture that he is going through and in the end you end up rooting for old George after all.