The Adulterants [Hardcover]

Ray Morris is a tech journalist with a forgettable face, a tiresome manner, a small but dedicated group of friends, and a wife, Garthene, who is pregnant. He is a man who has never been punched above the neck. He has never committed adultery with his actual body. He has never been caught up in a riot, nor arrested, nor tagged by the state, nor become an international hate-figure. Not until the summer of 2011, when discontent is rising on the streets and within his marriage. Ray has noticed none of this. Not yet.Dark, beautifully wry, and side-splittingly excruciating,?Blisteringly funny and brimming with caustic charma joyous diagnosis of our modern ills that made me laugh out loud even when it was breaking my heart.A domestic comedy that explodes the myths of manhood with joyful pandemonium.Wincingly good and brilliantly observed? . . .?[A] riveting read led by a character we care about and believe in.Darkly funny, Rays story embodies the modern failure-to-launch affliction, the problems of an adult who will not grow up. . . . Dunthornes conversational style is the perfect tone for delivering this late coming-of-age story with humor.Dunthorne (Dunthorne is a superbly economical writerhe crams an awful lot of plot into 173 pagesand one with a poets sensibility: a room is described as 'uncle-scented'; a paper plate of baba ganoush is 'smooshed' under a shoe. He is also properly funny. . . . But throughout, the novels comedy is always balanced by insight and poignancy.The ending of Joe Dunthornes new novel,For readers of Roddy Doyle, Nick Hornby, and Mark Haddon,