This is a Henry Milleresque tale about a young writer (the author's alter ego, David Henry) who quits his job as a letter clerk at Newsweek and decamps New York for the friendlier environs of Toronto. There, amidst various escapades and seductions, he obtains a freelance job writing an observation piece about Toronto for Canada's premier political/cultural journal. This leads to a job as a newswriter for the CBC, which, in a gratuitous salute to Miller, the author dubs the Cosmodemonic Broadcast Corporation. Unfortunately, Toronto is not Paris, nor is the author's style as lively or as cynical as Miller's, though some of his protagonist's observations about modern civilization and the rise and decline of the written word are interesting. Eventually the protagonist's self-destructive urges, so clearly laid out at the outset of the novel, get the better of him, and he finds himself in that "fallen" state of freedom to which he has aspired all along--a rejuvenation of the Milleresque happy-go-lucky character.

— Frank Caso, Booklist

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