The Adulterants (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781941040874)

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.

The Adulterants would be a coming-of-age story if its protagonist could only forget that he is thirty-three years old. Throughout a series of escalating catastrophes, our deadpan antihero keeps up a merciless mental commentary on the foibles and failings of those around him, and the vicissitudes of modern urban life: internet trolls, buy-to-let landlords, open marriages, and the threat posed by more sensitive men. But the wonder of The Adulterants is how we feel ourselves rooting for Ray even as we acknowledge that he deserves everything he gets.

Author: Joe Dunthorne
ISBN-10: 194104087X
ISBN-13: 9781941040874
Publisher: Tin House Books
Language: English
Published: 03/06/2018
Pages: 150
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.70h x 5.80w x 0.80d

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 01/01/2018
Publishers Weekly 01/01/2018
Library Journal 03/15/2018 pg. 84