BOOK INFORMATION
Title: The Sociopath
Author: J.V. Adams
Publisher: Jackinbbit Books
Price: $16.95
Pages: 285
By Michael Rosen-Molina
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
In the introduction, author J.V. Adams notes that men seem to
feel threatened by his book’s main character ““ a female
sociopath who exacts messy revenge on rapists with an X-acto knife
““ but that women enjoy reading about her exploits.
Whether or not this is true, the best thing that can be said
about “The Sociopath” is that it pulls no punches,
reveling in exposing the absolute worst dregs of society.
“The Sociopath” is the strange, rambling story of
Nancy Rousch and her crew of C.O.B.R.A. terrorists. Here,
C.O.B.R.A. isn’t G.I Joe’s mortal enemy, but an acronym
for “Cabal of the Book of Revelation Angels.”
An apocalyptic vision that begs comparison to such recent works
as “Fight Club,” the book goes about creating mayhem
and bringing some measure of justice to an unjust world.
The pivotal moment of the book is a cringe-inducing and graphic
castration scene. This passage in itself makes “The
Sociopath” worth reading. It is not fun, but it is
informative.
The castration victim is one Roosevelt Holmes, a serial rapist,
child molester, murderer. Adams describes Holmes’ crimes in
sickening detail.
The back cover crows that Adams’ exciting life experiences
allow him to write a novel with little or no research, and that he
is able to complete a full paperback novel in under fifty days.
Judging from “The Sociopath,” both claims appear to be
true. Adams’ writing style is coarse and clunky, and feels
like the work of a first-time writer.
Adams tells the story almost exactly the way that third-grade
teachers across the country admonish their students not to write.
The narrator tells everything, rather than allowing the characters
to speak through their own actions.
Adams’ writing does have a certain grotesque flair; an
extended soliloquy about the state of the world includes some of
the most grisly metaphors put to paper.
The narrator, a C.O.B.R.A. member and an associate of
Nancy’s, envisions a filthy apocalypse in which sewer
alligators, fat off of discarded medical waste, abandon the city to
head back to Okefinokee Swamp. The speech concludes with a very
disturbing revelation about the Bulk Tissue Reducer, a machine that
hospitals supposedly use to grind down all the left over body parts
to an easily manageable paste.
C.O.B.R.A. is peopled with bizarre characters, creepy figures
who have a way of making your skin crawl.
Charlie Zeff is an aspiring writer, who secretly plants bombs
beneath the houses of everyone who’s ever wronged him. He
never detonates them, but the very idea that he could instantly
kill any of his enemies gives him enormous satisfaction.
The narrator, Christian, is a woman who has been posing as a man
ever since the Korean War. In a convoluted series of events,
Christian pretends to be her brother John and takes his place in
the Korean War. Once there, she switches identity again, now
pretending to be a notorious black-marketing platoon mate after
John is killed by a land mine.
She tells the government that she ““ or rather John ““
is killed in the black-marketer’s place, and thus allows her
mother to send John to college with the insurance money from
John’s supposed death.
The story gets stranger from there.
“The Sociopath” is definitely a difficult book to
categorize. Its loving descriptions of gory violence tempt one to
dismiss it as sensationalist drivel, but scattered moments of lucid
brilliance raise the book to a higher level.
The vivid imagery, as disgusting as it is, is put together so
skillfully that one only wishes the author put as much effort into
constructing a more comprehensible plot.
As it stands, “The Sociopath” is interesting and may
leave a reader feeling vaguely queasy, but one cannot shake the
feeling that it might have been so much more.