The devil treebyJerzy Kosinski

The Devil Tree (1973) is a  novel by Jerzy Kosinski. The book is written in a series of disconnected vignetts in first and third person, a style that Kosinski repeatedly used in his novels. The story is about a youg man, Whalen, who inherits America's wealthiest estates after wandering through years of self exploration through sex, travel, and drugs. His bouts with social order continues after he enters the corporate world despite cutting the ties with previous bad habits because new pressuers enter. He eventually ends up in a mental institution.

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Product Description
A searing novel from a writer of international stature, The Devil Tree is a tale that combines the existential emptiness of Camus's The Stranger with the universe of international playboys, violence, and murder of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley. Jonathan Whalen's life has been determined from the start by the immense fortune of his father, a steel tycoon. Whalen's childlike delight in power and status mask a greater need, a desire to feel life intensely, through drugs, violence, sex, and attempts at meaningful connection with other people - whether lovers or the memory of his dead parents. But the physical is all that feels real to him, and as he embarks on a journey to Africa with his godparents, Whalen's embrace of amoral thrill accelerates toward ultimate fulfillment.