OUTBURSTS OF A FAILED “SOCIOPATH”

A 20-something American hoping for inner peace is burdened by paranoia and distrust in the second installment of this memoir.

Balor’s (Outbursts of a Privileged White Man, 2018) debut was a year’s worth of journal entries. His latest follows the same structure, beginning in mid-November 2017 when he lived with his father. It was a tense situation, as the author could hear the upstairs tenants speaking derogatorily about his often drunk father. So he left his father’s home and his grocery store job to live at a community known as “the Peaceorama.” Though it was initially a calm endeavor, Balor soon believed others at the Peaceorama resented him. He also had believed for some time that he was a paranoid schizophrenic and often “heard” other people’s thoughts, which generally condemned him. He ultimately moved back in with his father and worked at a series of jobs. His outlandish behavior was sometimes deliberate, such as mowing his father’s lawn in khakis, an “old man mask,” and a gaiter on his head. He, however, feared that his “acting” as a psychopath was a cover for a genuine psychosis. By the end of this installment of his story, Balor has isolated himself in an attic apartment, worried he might be the monster that some people perceived. Like the author’s preceding book, this lengthy memoir often takes a stream-of-consciousness approach. There are also quotes, poetry, and fragments of stories that occasionally interrupt Balor’s narrative. Nevertheless, there’s a discernible focus on Balor’s search for some form of normality. For example, he tried to find a steady job and made efforts to befriend people, even those who clearly didn’t like him. Though it’s a primarily somber peek into the author’s life, the book offers morsels of humor. In one of them Balor speaks to a woman at an unemployment agency as if she were an artificial intelligence, and his random thoughts are sometimes darkly comical: “Soup is an excellent method to poison someone.”

An unconventional personal account that’s gloomy but fascinating.