@UGMan

A man addicted to social media depicts his frightening reality in Sarvas’ unsettling novel.

“I have nowhere to go, and too much to hate right in front of me,” announces the narrator, explaining why he walked away from his life in order to spend his days in a dark room, naked and glued to his computer screen. It’s not a sense of online community that keeps UGMan (his Twitter handle) from engaging with the real world (in fact, he calls other perpetually online users “mouthbreathers”); he is instead driven by compulsion and a deep-rooted anger at perceived enemies like a right-wing, bow-tied commentator or a duplicitous senator, just two on his ever-growing list of “Those Who Must Die.” Over the course of UGMan’s different tirades, narrative threads emerge, including unhappy memories from his childhood, the loss of his daughter and wife, and his ill-fated time playing guitar in a cover band—but UGMan’s reflections on the real-world connections he has lost are constantly punctuated by notifications pulling him back to the virtual. The senator he hates dies (“Much speaking ill of the dead, I note with approval,” he observes), and the right-wing commentator goes missing. Could this all have something to do with the only person ever to like one of his tweets? Is the FBI really looking for him, or did his sleep-deprived brain imagine that? UGMan never quite earns the reader’s sympathy, but Sarvas certainly earns respect for the stunning complexity of his protagonist—UGMan’s narration achieves great highs of wit and literary reference before plummeting down to the most basic references and internet-speak. That same rollercoaster is reflected in his fractured psychology; as UGMan ricochets from self-aware to complete delusion and paranoia, the reader also starts to question reality. The novel boldly avoids following any of the more predictable plot threads developing on the periphery of UGMan’s perspective—Sarvas has made UGMan’s acerbic mind the primary focus. It is a striking creation, but the novel’s relentless intensity leaves little room for readers to feel anything other than despair. As UGMan himself says, “It’s all quite unpleasant, isn’t it?”

A chilling, flawlessly executed, and emotionally taxing portrayal of a broken psyche.