Lee has a jealous rage because his partner, Marie, has been drunkenly flirting with Ray at a house party. On that point alone this book comes highly recommended.Joe Dunthorne’s third novel begins with its narrator, Ray, getting sparked out by his best friend. So many books are sold as being hilarious but fail to elicit a chuckle (from me anyway), but The Adulterants, with it’s awkward, almost absurdist humour had me pissing myself (not literally, I don’t need to see a Doctor). Most of all though, it’s refreshing to read a funny novel. It helps that Dunthorne doesn’t hate Ray, that while he makes no effort for the reader to like him he doesn’t actively undermine Ray’s humanity, he doesn’t turn him into an ugly caricature. Dunthorne, though, finds that sweet spot between a man who is a bundle of neuroses and a man who is justifiably (mostly) struggling to cope. As I write this, I still can’t believe that I didn’t want to punch Ray. The fact that she is having an affair isn’t a confirmation of his doubts and fears but the outcome of a self-fulfilling prophecy. He can’t afford a “nasty” maisonette, he hasn’t set the world on fire with his soulless free-lance writing and while Ray loves his wife Garthene, and she loves him, he is overwhelmed by the guilt and suspicion that she may be having an affair. There’s an almost slapstick, Hal Roach vibe to it all, in other words, my sort of comedy.īut for all the humour and third-act misunderstandings, The Adulterants is about a man struggling to understand where he sits in the scheme of things. He is punched in the face because he won’t fuck another man’s wife, is sucked into a London riot, and faces the horror of a social media dogpile. Humour is, I know, subjective, but I connected with Ray’s dry, sardonic wit and the mishigas he confronts. Two: The Adulterants is fucking hilarious. Maybe a ‘meh’ or a groan, but not a toothy growl.

A book that short and there isn’t the time to muster up intense, bitter, venomous hatred for a character. One: The Adulterants is only 160 or so pages long. That’s not to say I liked him, but for all his quirks and neuroses I remained engaged in his story. He’s insecure and paranoid the typical nebbish made famous by Woody Allen, used and re-used by so many – often male – writers. I should loathe Ray, the hero of Joe Dunthorne’s third novel, The Adulterants.

Joe dunthorne the adulterants