When a book starts out with a dedication \to all the busboys and dishwashers who have had to suffer fools who are not nearly as brave, honest and tough as they are,"" it is pretty easy to surmise this book may have some pretty strong issues with society.
In this book, ""Anti-Hero,"" Michael Tenaglia has created an interesting character, to say the least. Billy Donovan is a young so-called anarchist living in a crappy apartment in New York City with his girlfriend.
Billy works the occasional odd job to make ends meet while he waits to make it big as an actor, and he seems to spend his spare time entertaining a drinking problem.
Throughout the course of this book, Donovan is involved in several vicious fights-including one where he beats up a homeless man- and brags about his penchant for violence-but then turns around and preaches anarchism and equality among all. His politics are frequently confusing and occasionally hypocritical. In one ramble he says, ""One problem I had being an anarchist is that we don't have a political convention to go to. No real leaders among us, either."" But then he goes on to say that the point of anarchism is that there are no leaders, and everyone is equal. It gets confusing.
Unfortunately, Tenaglia seems to lose sight of his storyline several times, and he uses the momentary lapses to preach, turning this book into a very long-winded soapbox.
He bores his readers with page after page of judgments such as, ""If you kill or rape a kid, you should be slaughtered. No jail. Take them into the street and hack them up with a machete, then feed their body to the birds and squirrels. We have drug addicts and minor drug dealers in jail and child molesters running loose. You're against the death penalty? Fine. Lobotomize them."" This makes for some pretty bland, albeit emotionally charged reading.
Interspersed with the rambles and attempt at a storyline, Donovan bores readers with flashbacks of childhood memories and stories of his sexual exploits. None of these stories are particularly interesting, unfortunately, nor do they seem to tie in to the main storyline in any way.
But it is when Donovan goes off on non-political rambles that the reader really begins to get bored. In one rant, he attacks a macchiato he got at Starbucks, saying he was so offended he poured it out in front of the woman who had just made it. ""The reason they have better coffee [in Europe] is because the people who make your coffee in Italy are taught how to make a good cup of espresso before they are given their job. And, if they start to make a bad espresso, they get fired.""
It is rants like this that remove all credibility from the author. Considering that he is a blue-collar, beer-drinking construction worker from the Bronx, one could hardly argue that he would be an expert on fine coffees.
When Donovan goes off on tangents, he sounds like a pothead spouting pseudo-intellectual opinions on things he knows nothing about. It makes it very hard to take him seriously.
This book, after first reading, appears to have been written by a man going through a mid-life crisis. It is long-winded, mind-numbing beyond belief and extremely difficult to finish. Every time a person puts the book down they will almost be certain to lose their place because the narrator keeps jumping from topic to topic and making no sense whatsoever.
Even more annoying is the fact that the editors of this book apparently missed several typographical errors in the book-they are not common enough to have been intentional, but appear enough to seriously detract from the overall quality of the book. And when the author consistently misspells the name of the main drag in Key West during a vacation there, it removes his last shred of validity.
This book is only recommended for people who are looking for an anesthetically dull book to help them sleep or for hard-core social theorists who want to look at a good example of inconsistent politics.
