People Next Door

THE STORY: As The New York Times comments: Mr. Miller's drama involves two middle-class families that outwardly symbolize the tranquillity of stable suburbia. But behind the green shutters and the contentment of sustained affluence lies the latent turmoil all too frequently documented in police records, the tragedy of households divided against themselves with children and parents going separate routes to common disaster. In one of Mr. Miller's families-the Masons-a sixteen-year-old girl takes LSD and worse. In the second family-the Hoffmans-the son turns out to be the wise-guy pusher coining a fortune in debasing his peers. The girl's destruction is remorselessly unfolded-the wild fantasies of trips on drugs, the filth and sordidness of an East Village pad, the unsuccessful attempts at group therapy, the pure horror of the understaffed ward for the disturbed and finally the distinct possibility that the child may face a controlled environment for the rest of her life. In a final scene of explosive fury her father lashes out against the forces that have destroyed his daughter, but it is too late-and his own share of the guilt too great. There is only the hope that others will understand-and learn from-his agony.Miller, J. P. is the author of 'People Next Door ' with ISBN 9780822208846 and ISBN 0822208849.