The Rapist

Truman Ferris Pinter, the narrator of this short crime novel from Edgerton (Just Like That), makes no effort to win the reader over as he recollects the brutal act that has landed him on death row. Assuming that the listener to his tale was “raised on an insipid diet of television,” Pinter promises to make it “simple and direct,” but soon violates his own guidelines by offering silly philosophical asides that do nothing to advance the plot (“Perhaps we are all returned to life in the form of mosquitoes, which would certainly explain why there are so many of them”). In his defense, Pinter suggests that he may not be guilty of rape, because, by definition, whores cannot be raped. Fans of Jean Genet and Charles Bukowski will feel at home, though some language sticklers may take offense at the use of the word jejune twice in three pages. (Mar.)