Nineteen in '19: The Adulterants

I've read far less in recent years than I would like. To help remedy this, I've set myself the modest target of reading nineteen books in 2019. When I finish one, a thumbnail review here will follow.

9/19: The Adulterants by Joe Dunthorne

The blurb: Ray is not a bad guy. He mostly did not cheat on his heavily pregnant wife. He only sometimes despises every one of his friends. And though his career as a freelance tech journalist is dismal and he spends his afternoons churning out third-rate listicles in his boxer briefs, he dreams of making a difference. But Ray is about to learn that his special talent is for making things worse. Brace yourself for a wickedly funny look at the modern everyman. The Adulterants is an uproarious tale of competitively sensitive men and catastrophic open marriages, riots on the streets of London and Internet righteousness, and one man's valiant quest to come of age in his thirties. With lacerating wit and wry affection, Joe Dunthorne dissects the urban millennial psyche of a man too old to be an actual millennial.

The review: in some ways, The Adulterants starts off like a David Nicholls book - you know, Starter For Ten or One Day, that sort of thing. It puts a likeable, relatable character in an increasingly difficult situation, in such a way that the reader can join the dots and see what is coming. To offset the increasing challenges our narrator faces, again like Nicholls, Dunthorne uses humour, often very dark humour. This is a good thing, by the way. The difference between the two authors though is how they resolve their books - Nicholls would enable his protagonist to somehow turn things around and triumph in the sort of feelgood ending beloved of rom-coms fans and film studios. Dunthorne, however, eschews such temptations, preferring to deliver a resolution that feels so much more real. Because life isn't like that. You know it, I know it and Joe Dunthorne knows it too.

Of course there is a flip side to this. Some readers may feel cheated out of an ending. They may come to the end of this book and think, "Oh. Is that it?" That would be a shame, though, because often in life, that is it. And what's more, to feel disappointed is to have missed the point, and to not have enjoyed the ride. And there is so much to enjoy here. Dunthorne's prose is fluid and natural, so much so that beautiful turns of phrase and combinations of words slip by, almost unnoticed. I lost count of the number of times I read a line and thought, "Ooh, that's good." What's more, his protagonist Ray remains likeable even when going off the rails, making bad choices and doing things he really shouldn't - this can be a tough trick to pull off, yet Dunthorne manages it with aplomb.

Most noteworthy though is the authenticity of The Adulterants - I am not in my mid-30s but this feels real to me. Similarly, I was not in my mid-teens when I read Dunthorne's brilliant first novel, Submarine (memorably adapted for film by Richard Ayoade) but that felt real too. This is a real book, something you read because you love reading, not just because you want a book to take on holiday with you. And, as an aspiring writer, it's very much the sort of book I wish I could have written.

The bottom line: you might not like the ending but it's the right ending for an engaging, hard-to-put-down book, shot through with dark humour and with something to say about the rubbishness of modern life.

Since everything online is rated these days: ★★★★★☆