Take Me Where the Good Times Are

Last updated
Take Me Where the Good Times Are
TakeMeWhereTheGoodTimesAre.jpg
First edition
Author Robert Cormier
Cover artistJ. Sposato
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreNovel
Publisher Macmillan
Publication date
1965
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)

Take Me Where the Good Times Are is a novel by Robert Cormier. First published in 1965, it is Cormier's third novel.

Robert Cormier American author, columnist and reporter

Robert Edmund Cormier was an American author and journalist, known for his deeply pessimistic novels, many of which were written for young adults. Recurring themes include abuse, mental illness, violence, revenge, betrayal, and conspiracy. In most of his novels, the protagonists do not win.

Contents

Plot

This story features Tommy Bartin, a 70-year-old resident at the Dorchester County, Maryland poorhouse. When another resident leaves Tommy some cash, he sees his opportunity to go back to the area he grew up in. However, Tommy finds that his old town has changed substantially over time, and he hopes to find a way to be useful again, and to regain his self-respect. [1]

Dorchester County, Maryland U.S. county in Maryland

Dorchester County is a county located in the U.S. state of Maryland. At the 2010 census, the population was 32,618. Its county seat is Cambridge. The county was formed in 1669 and named for the Earl of Dorset, a family friend of the Calverts.

Themes

Themes in this story include the quality of denial and facing reality even if it is undesirable. [1]

Denial psychological defense mechanism postulated by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud; refusal to accept some aspect of reality

Denial, in ordinary English usage, is asserting that a statement or allegation is not true. The same word, and also abnegation, is used for a psychological defense mechanism postulated by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, in which a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence. An individual that exhibits such behavior is described as a denialist or true believer. Denial also could mean denying the happening of an event or the reliability of information, which can lead to a feeling of aloofness and to the ignoring of possibly beneficial information.

Reality is the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent, as opposed to that which is only imaginary. The term is also used to refer to the ontological status of things, indicating their existence. In physical terms, reality is the totality of the universe, known and unknown. Philosophical questions about the nature of reality or existence or being are considered under the rubric of ontology, which is a major branch of metaphysics in the Western philosophical tradition. Ontological questions also feature in diverse branches of philosophy, including the philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophical logic. These include questions about whether only physical objects are real, whether reality is fundamentally immaterial, whether hypothetical unobservable entities posited by scientific theories exist, whether God exists, whether numbers and other abstract objects exist, and whether possible worlds exist.

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References

  1. 1 2 Reeves, Joseph T. (April 24, 2000). "Take Me Where the Good Times Are (Mass Market Paperback)". Amazon . Retrieved 2009-06-27.