The interminably dull rambling of a self- obsessed, rich, apathetic bore who studies literature, but doesn’t care to read any books by women. The text consists mainly of the relation of a series of sexually traumatic incidents either committed or observed by the protagonist. This is interspaced with him self-pityingly relaying his minor gripes about life. He shows no emotional response to anything other than his own personal misery, I assume due in part to the fact that he  doesn’t seem to be entirely aware that women are human beings. 

This is a repetitive trudge through three decades of a dull and selfish life which remains fundamentally unexamined despite the narrator’s tendency toward navel-gazing self obsession; unfortunately he is just too shallow to have any profound insights, despite his straining for meaning.

What we are left with is a collection of banalities about capitalism and the violence and rapacity of the American dream. This is very much treading old ground, with nothing new to bring to the conversation. Instead the book is passed out by the protagonist reminiscing about some walks he had taken throughout his life, detailing the cooking of various horrible meals he has eaten or discarded in favour of take-away, relating his dull dreams and humble-bragging about how his family is the embodiment of American capitalist destruction, which is important because it’s actually quite upsetting for him.

I even began to wonder for a while if it was an attempt at satire, referencing all those ‘state of the American male’ novels about a hard-drinking, quasi-intellectual misogynist who fucks every woman he sees and suffers from some sort of non-specific but much discussed existentialist malaise. After all, the main character actually compares himself to Holden Caulfield at one point. Surely that must be a joke? And then there’s his propensity to wax lyrical at us, the reader, about how much effort the is putting into not being too self-obsessed 😐 Plus he spends the entire book reading the type of novels True North appears to be attempting to emulate, and having his efforts to meet these standards with his own writing judged to be insufficient. But if parody was the intention then True North fell short, only achieving at best the level of a weak facsimile of other already flawed works.

Also, my god, please stop talking about your cock. No one cares.

The most sympathetic character is Carla the dog, who regularly falls asleep through boredom when burdened with the narrator’s company.