title: The Lazy Boys: A Novel
author:  Carl Shuker 
description: Richard "Souse" Sauer, the 18-year-old antihero narrator of New Zealand writer Shuker's second novel (after <i>Method Actors</i>) is on a violent behavior jag that would make <i>American Psycho</i>'s Patrick Bateman proud. Souse is a sensitive, self-destructive kid made uncomfortable by his first contact with independence as a marketing student at the University of Otago. Unofficially, he has switched to the more congenial discipline of beer guzzling, with a minor in bong hits; one beer-drenched night he does some awful, sexually abusive thing that he can't quite remember to "this blond chick" at a party. Early on, Souse is revealed to be both a sadist (he tortures Snoopy, the family dog, and reads serial killer stories for inspiration) and a sensitive soul (he has a Sylvia Plath poem tacked up in his dorm room). After he leaves college and moves in with some similarly disaffected friends, Souse's days are foggy with parties, bars, self-pity and introspectionthe latter two being pretty much identical. Unfortunately, the numbing regularity of Souse's days and nights (party, stupor, self-loathing) diminish the reader's interest long before Souse's final plunge into mayhem. <i>(Oct.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  ALSO BY CARL SHUKER
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Anti Lebanon
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The Lazy Boys
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The Method Actors
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Three Novellas for a Novel
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  A Mistake
  
  
  Copyright © 2019 by Carl Shuker
  
  
  First Counterpoint hardcover edition: 2019
  
  
  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
  Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
  whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case
  of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
  
  
  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
  the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
  resemblance to actual events is unintended and entirely coincidental.
  
  
  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Shuker, R. Carl,
  1974– author.
  
  
  Title: A mistake / Carl Shuker.
  
  
  Description: First Counterpoint hardcover edition. | Berkeley, California :
  Counterpoint, 2019.
  
  
  Identifiers: LCCN 2019004433 | 