This book is one of those very rare novels which is narrated in the second-person. In other words, the narrator addresses himself throughout the narrative as “you” rather than “I” with the intent to create a distancing effect that is supposed to bring about a more visceral connection between the character and the reader. Ultimately, however, this device seems to be little more than a gimmick engaged expressly for the purpose of delaying for as long as the possible the inevitable revelation that comes with every novel focusing on the main characteristic of this narrator that makes his life worth reading about: raging alcoholic are among the most boring human beings on the planet.
The novel is mercifully short, but some readers may definitely feel it would have benefited greatly from being much shorter. The story begins with the narrator recalling how he scored at a party on the night his father died, but this memory quickly turns into a much longer recollection of a childhood picnic with his parents. This chapter contains not real focus or even mention of alcoholic consumption and it is to be savored. Starting with the opening line of Chapter 2, that respite disappears forever. From this description going to a party with the express purpose of getting drunk and having sex the gimmick of that second-person detached voice of self-awareness never gives up engaging in discourse with itself over the intention to get drunk, the act of getting drunk, the memory of getting drunk or the fleeting moments of self-hatred at having a wasted a half a life by doing little more than getting drunk with the knowledge that the second half is going to be mere replication.
This is the story of Morris Magellan, thirty-four year old alcoholic. Normally, of course, that sentence would read something more along the lines of this is the story of Morris Magellan, a successful executive at a British biscuit-making company as he spirals into the vortex of a mid-life crisis. This story chooses to trod the same path as that of almost literally every single novel about a drunk which came before it by having its protagonist’s entire life revolve around nothing but the disease which causes him to be unable to just say no and choose to drink responsibly. And so instead of insight into what it is like to work on the inside of a biscuit company, it is the story of biscuit company executive whose dissatisfaction with what goes on inside a biscuit company leads him to deal with the sweats of compulsive alcohol consumption while he dreams of drinking brandy and listening to classical music.
What might be a tender moment between a father and daughter becomes instead an attempt not to appear to be solely responsible for the bottle of brandy held in one’s hand being completely empty as a walk to the house becomes a battle to avoid both vomiting and losing the sense of balance required to remain upright.
Mrs. Magellan—Morris’ wife Mary—is not just presented only through the perspective of the narrator, but, of course, through that perspective skewed by the second-person disconnect. Mary seems pleasant enough, but because the story is told through the eyes of a person who first and only real love is distilled spirits, she becomes little more than a question to the reader: what on earth does Morris give her that she puts up with his alcoholism and abuse? Because she is presented from his doubly skewed perspective, Mary becomes a stereotypical example of the enabler of the addictive personality and, as such, naturally, this very role makes her worthy of his contempt and abuse because, when all is said, Morris is once again exactly like almost every other alcoholic: self-loathing to his core, but not self-hating enough to change.
There is another woman in the life of Morris Magellan, but while Katherine is enough to turn Mary into a solid block of ice for a night, for Morris she is far less enticing than another glass of Courvoisier. Eventually his wife, her would-be replacement, his job at the biscuit company and every aspect of his life becomes a merely white noise in the background on his way to the next sip of brandy. Things go downhill on all fronts and the intrusion of mortality in the form of the gruesome accidental death of a complete stranger fail to make serious impact upon a mind devoted to the preserving belief in the lie that alcohol is not a problem adversely affecting his life, it is the solution keeping it from complete disintegration.
On his thirty-fifth birthday, the widespread destruction of brain cells at the hands of voluminous consumption of alcohol rise to the moment, filling the head of Morris Magellan with the sound of his dead father’s voice as he pushes the pushes his foot down hard and harder on the accelerator pedal. He is desperate to reach his father, but the speed is pushing the vehicle to its limit of control and soon it is another voice breaking through the diseased part of his mind to make contact with those cells yet to be killed by excessive brandy intake. It is the voice of Mary, in tears and screaming at the top of her voice for him to stop. Which he finally does, bringing the car to a full stop on the shoulder of the highway as he joins his terrified wife in a uncontrollable fountain of tears.
