Creeping Depression

                I'm not too fond of this story due to the hidden depression written between the lines. Everyone Jack meets is mad with happiness and although it is always a good thing to be happy, an overwhelming abundance of it can only be an attempt to ignore sadness. For example, Henri, a man who lives in a small shack with his wife Diane, is probably the happiest person Jack ever meets. "And I say tho Henri was having worklife problems and a bad love life with a sharp-tongued woman he at least had learned to laugh almost better than anyone in the world and I saw all the fun we were going to have in Frisco." What I find sad is that he is either truthfully just a happy person regardless of the shit situation he is in, or he just forces himself to be mad with happiness in order to cover his true feelings. Even Jack surrounds himself with happy people in hopes to distract himself from his unhappy life. "So the first week I stayed in the shack in Marin City writing furiously at some gloomy tale about New York that I thought would satisfy a Hollywood director, and the trouble with it was that it was too sad." His true emotions come out in his writing and as much as he tried to cover it up, he can't help but let it out once in a while. That is what I find so sad. Even Henri gets "disappointed about the funniest things." 

                I believe it is better to come face to face with what bothers someone rather than try and push it back, only for it to come out in the subconscious. Things like this slowly deteriorate a character until they eventually become truly mad.