Synopsis
Carl Shuker's protagonist, Richard Sauer, heads off to college for no reason other than to escape the stultifying normalcy of his middle-class family in Timaru, New Zealand. He may appear ordinary in his aimlessness, mangling his way through his first year in college, but his bonging and banging, his anger and rage, take a brutal turn at an out-of-control dorm party which lands Richey in front of the disciplinary committee with a sexual harassment charge. Dropping out of school before he's thrown out, Richey and his housemates Matt, Nick, and Ursula begin a freefall that forces Richey to face his most destructive desires.
Sex, violence, mutilation, and drugs fuel the despair and alienation of these disaffected youth — those once innocent but now struggle to find the right combination of alcohol and drugs to keep an all-night buzz. Like a punch in the stomach or a sustained cry, Carl Shuker's risky and harrowing first person narrative is as visceral as Fight Club and as brutal as A Clockwork Orange. On the surface Richey's actions are unforgivable, but his unformed and distorted world is immediate and recognizable to a generation brought up in a society indifferent to its own nihilism.
Publishers Weekly
Richard "Souse" Sauer, the 18-year-old antihero narrator of New Zealand writer Shuker's second novel (after Method Actors) is on a violent behavior jag that would make American Psycho's Patrick Bateman proud. Souse is a sensitive, self-destructive kid made uncomfortable by his first contact with independence as a marketing student at the University of Otago. Unofficially, he has switched to the more congenial discipline of beer guzzling, with a minor in bong hits; one beer-drenched night he does some awful, sexually abusive thing that he can't quite remember to "this blond chick" at a party. Early on, Souse is revealed to be both a sadist (he tortures Snoopy, the family dog, and reads serial killer stories for inspiration) and a sensitive soul (he has a Sylvia Plath poem tacked up in his dorm room). After he leaves college and moves in with some similarly disaffected friends, Souse's days are foggy with parties, bars, self-pity and introspection-the latter two being pretty much identical. Unfortunately, the numbing regularity of Souse's days and nights (party, stupor, self-loathing) diminish the reader's interest long before Souse's final plunge into mayhem. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.