There are many adjectives that could be used to describe this book; hilarious, intriguing, exciting, dark, macabre, poignant, paranoid, and perhaps most importantly "meh". I suppose that would be the greatest of praises you could give our main character: to read the book and decide to go get drunk on pitcher of warm Miller in some bar we've never bothered to learn the name of. There wasn't a page of Apathy that didn't leave me laughing, which is perhaps hard to understand if you haven't been faced with the life of a man that starts and stops at a Greyhound station.
Ultimately this is a book about death, and a book about living without fear of it. Or perhaps it's about a fear of vampires and a compulsive need to steal saltshakers. It is without doubt a piece of dark humor worth reading, and worth buying in hardback if you can as it's something you're going to want to read again. There are so many brutally funny lines, observations, and characteristics we all share in some way.
I don't know if Apathy made me want to go pick up a decrepit child's bike and ride it to work every day, but it did throw into stark contrast that sometimes you aren't an urban warrior you're just what everyone thinks is the mentally handicapped fellow riding his bike to who knows where.
I think the greatest humor of Apathy is what we have all been embarrassed by in our lives, being the person in a crowded room talking at full volume and then suddenly it's silent and you're the victim of some horrible out of context soundbite. The things we say, think, and feel are so often taken out of context by those around us but in a state of apathy we can just let that go and without caring just roll with it.
If there were a way to encapsulate the plot of this book into a small space I would, I don't think it's entirely possible but here's a shot:
You wake up covered in salt, realize there are police in your room, get harassed for a bit and begin to question your own drinking binges. You're having sex with your landlord's wife to get money knocked off the rent and you really think your landlord is a nice guy, your neighbor is possibly violating his pet guinea pig upstairs at all hours of the day and night, you don't pay your dentist and learned sign language from his assistant. Did I mention that your dentist has to drink iced tea to get over his panic attack / fainting spells? On top of this your one night stand turned into a crazy series of weird almost dating experiences with a woman you can't be with unless drunk and she thinks body shot is when she cripples you in bed, oh and she got you a job alphabetizing paperwork at an insurance company where you sleep on the toilet all day as a form of art and protest.
See, that's not even the half of it.
Go, go, read now!
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Top reviews from other countries
Jo Hudson
chapter 1 - interior - night -
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 9, 2007Ms. N. F. J.
Misanthropy, schadenfreude (and commas) abound in this darkly witty tale
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 29, 2016