P. Robert Smith

I admit I was picked this up because of the wacky title and plug by Douglas Coupland on the front cover of this book, then when I read the blurb on the back I decided it was probably going to be great fun.

I didn't expect it to be quite so laddish though. I should have read the first page in the bookshop which does set the tone - propriety forbids me from describing the request made by the novel's main character of his new Korean virgin girlfriend. Suffice it to say, if I'd read that far then, I probably wouldn't have bought it. It was a bit like all the other lad-lit about but nowhere near as intelligent as the best.

It features Benton, a thirty-six year old who has never grown up, is sex mad and commitment-phobic . All the people around him have bizarre accidents, or die in horrid ways - their misfortunes obviously being the only really interesting things in his life worth telling us about. I must admit, I quite enjoyed some of these bits, and did chuckle occasionally. But they are no more than vignettes in the current predicament of Benton's current relationships which are rocky, and far from funny or real depth - unlike those of Rob in Nick Hornby's High Fidelity - a book I adored.

In retrospect though, the thing I most liked about the book was the cover, which if you look carefully is peopled with little figures and things around the letters of the title which tell you the entire story!… (mehr)