This was one of those books that I bought and read because I knew that my parents would disapprove and I needed to be a little rebellious. I will not lie the title is what drew me to the book, but after I read a few chapters I started to like the story as well.
I found this book to be rather similar to The Catcher In the Rye. It was about a man, so young he is almost a kid, wandering around New York basically fucking up his life. The difference was I did not completely hate the main character and he also found sort of redemption and meaning at the end of the story.
This review would be a lot easier if I could remember the name of the main character, but for the life of I cannot. Its not that I wasn't paying attention; the book is told wonderfully in first person. The main characters name is seldom mentioned. So I will just refer to him as he or him.
When the book starts out he has an okay life, but after some poor decisions that all goes down the tube. He loses his girlfriends and therefor his place to live because he was "dating" (more like going on walks in the cold and not getting any) with a girl from the movie theater where he worked. He gets fired from his job, so he has no money.
He ends up on his friends couch. Still torn up from his break up he doesn't do anything, he doesn't shower, he doesn't eat, he just lays there. Eventually Helmsley, his friends, get him up, showered, feed and sends him out into the world. He tries hard to look for a job, but with no qualification and no degree (he dropped out of college right before graduating) he can't find one.
Eventually he finds work at a gay porno theater (don't worry there is no pornographic descriptions in the book). This job brings in a colorful cast of characters and a messed up set of events. He drifts between women, houses, and sexuality.
After losing his job at the porno theater for stealing money, getting attacked twice and sent to the hospital, meeting two women and losing them in a matter of days, getting a poem published in a magazine, having a friend die, and getting seriously drunk multiple times, he ends up at a men's shelter.
This was my favorite part of the book. It is sad. He suffers. He finds him self in the same place with the bag men he has always sneered at. He realizes that people are not just in this situation because they can't find a job. After starving, freezing, and peeing in doorways he is finally picked up out of the gutter by the most unlikely person. I don't want to spoil the surprise if you read it, but it kinda makes you reconsider you first impressions of people.
I read this book mostly to be rebellious, but I ended up learning a few things. People are not always who we think they are. Bag men are not always lazy people who don't want to find a job. Sluts from the Broncs are not always awful people. It would do us all good to look beneath first appearances, and remember that sometimes we all fuck up.
Lindsey
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