Thumbsucker
Book | Walter Kirn
A thumb-sucking, pill-popping, Bible-toting joyride through middle-American ennui.
It sucks to be Justin Cobb and sucking is what he does best in Walter Kirn's Thumbsucker, a bildungsroman about a Minnesota teen with an oral fixation. Justin's father is a suicidal sports fanatic, his brother a preternaturally all-American jock. His mother is too pretty to be a mom—Hello, Freud!—and Justin can't seem to make friends. With all this dysfunctionality and no relief in sight, he turns to thumb-sucking, pill-popping, and Mormonism. Each offers a temporary respite from his alienation and dissatisfaction, but also fails to make him happy. Though ultimately pessimistic in its view of life, Thumbsucker retains a sense of buoyancy with language as energetic as the uppers Justin takes, and a cast of colorful characters. Kirn is viciously funny, and his satirical sketches of middle-American self-medication at once ring true and seem utterly absurd. Yes, Justin is at times self-centered and callous, but Kirn's thumb-in-mouth, tongue-in-cheek narration make him more compelling than any of the myriad addictions he indulges in.
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