July 27, 2015
The second novel from Toltz (A Fraction of the Whole) is all about the eccentric and ambitious Aldo Benjamin. Set in Australia, Aldo’s tragicomic story is told by his friend, policeman and failed writer Liam Wilder. Plagued by mountains of debt and dogged by a series of deaths, Aldo botches one suicide attempt, and the collateral damage leads to an accusation of attempted infanticide. Uncommonly unlucky, Aldo’s bad fortune stretches back into his high school years when, as a virgin, he was falsely accused of rape. Later in life he is accused of murdering his girlfriend, and his digressive testimony at the subsequent trial occupies the second half of the book. Yet Aldo remains constantly buoyed by ideas for another business plan, another scheme, another way to die. Eventually Aldo finds himself crippled—marooned on a magic beach, and it is there that he finally concocts the perfect business plan. Toltz channels a poet’s delight in crafting the perfect phrase on every highly quotable page. In his epic lack of employment and sincere lust for life, Aldo Benjamin is quite a memorable character. By turns hilarious and hopeless, Toltz’s novel is a tender portrait of a charming and talented loser.
February 26, 2015
This long-awaited follow-up to A Fraction of the Whole, Steve Toltz’s 2008 Booker Prize-shortlisted debut, is similarly full of larrikin philosophers, artists and eccentrics hatching schemes and generally failing at life, sometimes to the point of nationwide infamy. Well-intentioned misfits inadvertently veering into catastrophe, Aldo Benjamin and Liam Wilder could easily be cousins of Fraction’s Dean family. Aldo and Liam are lifelong friends. Aldo’s life is one of protracted misadventure and failing writer Liam has made Aldo his unwilling muse. Liam is a garden-variety loser—after 20 or so years on the police force, when he corrects a known criminal who calls him detective instead of constable, the man incredulously asks, ‘still?’ There is nothing ordinary about Aldo though, an individual so beset by bad luck that his repeated inability to commit suicide leads him to a conclusion of immortality. Aldo’s misadventures are recounted initially through Liam’s eyes, then Liam’s manuscript, Aldo’s disgusted response, a rather longwinded courtroom transcript and some navel-gazing prison poetry. There is certainly a lightness—and at times laugh-out-loud hilarity—to this tale of thwarted ambitions, failed relationships and questionable artistic ability, but ultimately Aldo’s bad luck tips into tragedy and Toltz, for all his comedic cleverness, is equally skilled with pathos.
Portia Lindsay is general manager for Seizure Online and a former bookseller