Byron Easy

This ambitious debut from an English musician turned writer is linguistically inventive and undeniably clever, but the novel, about a failed poet in the aftermath of a failed relationship, is overwrought and overwritten. The poet, Byron Easy, has never had it easy, but he has definitely hit bottom when the novel opens on Christmas Eve of 1999 in a London train station. He is returning to his mother and Leeds, much the worse for wear, "a penniless loser" and reeling from his disastrous marriage to Mandy. The journey through England gives Easy the chance to ruminate on the hellishness of contemporary life (which is to say: the hellishness of his own existence), and provides Cook a frame for Easy's backstory, from his dysfunctional family and childhood to the trials and tribulations of making it in London. But the bulk of the narrative is devoted to the agonies inflicted on him by Mandy, one of the most accomplished shrews in the history of literature. Mandy is unspeakably horrific: manipulative and petulant, cruel and abusive. It's hard to find any reason to like her, which makes it hard to feel much sympathy for the narrator, though Cook goes to great lengths%E2%80%94too great, ultimately, both in terms of length and action%E2%80%94to make Easy sympathetic. Cook is funny and perceptive, an over-the-top stylist with an immense vocabulary%E2%80%94but he needs a more credible and engaging plot to put his obvious abilities to work. (Jan.)