I, LLOYD STOLLMAN

In Sullivan’s debut novel, a loner tries on a few new personalities.

Ever since he retired from his job as a photographer at the Department of Motor Vehicles in Culver City, California, Lloyd Stollman has lived an isolated life of frustration, feeling like a stranger in his native city. All that changes on the day he dresses himself like a movie cowboy and takes a stroll around the block in L.A.’s West Adams neighborhood. “It was such a revelation,” he narrates. “It was such a relief. Not to have to be myself….By allowing myself to cover myself, I had been revealed. By allowing myself to cover myself, I had become myself.” He starts wearing the outfit all over the city, constructing a fictional background for the cowpoke; before long, he buys some additional wigs and makeup at a costume store to expand his repertoire. He invents an aggressive mobster character, as well as a violent ex-trucker persona who knows how to use a knife, and he unleashes them on an unsuspecting public. As he feels compelled to remain in character, Lloyd soon finds himself doing things—horrible things—that he would never have done on his own. The characters keep coming, and so do the crimes; can Lloyd get a handle on his creations before “Lloyd Stollman” becomes just another character? In Sullivan’s hands, Stollman’s monologue is by turns funny, insightful, and terrifying, but always razor sharp, as when he considers his feelings as the character of “Glenda”: “As a woman I was seeing so much more and even hearing things which I had never heard before. It was like all my senses had opened up into a new and different level, a level closer to the actuality of things.” The Paul Schrader–penned 1976 film Taxi Driver is mentioned a few times, and the book feels in many ways like a lost Schrader film. For readers who don’t mind spending time with the thoughts and actions of a disturbed, solitary character, this book will offer a memorable ride.

A witty and transgressive tale about the villains that lurk within us.