The Toy Collector
by James Gunn
Bloomsbury

James Gunn's "The Toy Collector" is likely to provoke one of two extreme reactions. Some will see the novel as the literary equivalent of a "South Park" episode, a loose plot designed to accomodate as many gross-out scenes as possible. However, Gunn's style and economy of words will lead some to his novel in the same league as a Salinger or a Lermantov, a sort of "Catcher in the Rye" gone awry.

The book, which details both the childhood and early adulthood of an eponymous character who flits in and out of alcoholism as quickly as he does relationships, is not for the faint of heart. Indeed, the first reaction is thoroughly justified, at least on the superficial level. Gunn revels in long descriptions of fights, suicides and sex in their juiciest details — rarely has the word "jiz" figured so centrally in a non-pornographic work. And while a certain amount of this description is crucial to the story, a little bit goes a long way, and at times Gunn seems to be relishing in the grotesque for its own sake (not surprising, as Gunn was a staff writer for Troma Productions, the studio that gave us Surf Nazis Must Die and The Class of Nuke'em High).

The novel begins with James Gunn the younger, an average child with mildly dysfunctional parents, growing up in the suburbs on a hearty diet of toys and television. Aided by his brother, Tar, and their neighborhood friends, James commits a series of increasingly violent pranks, beginning with theft and culminating with stabbing a school bully with a pencil.

The story jumps intermittently to the older version of Gunn, a 25-year-old college dropout who fits his job as a hospital orderly in between benders and his growing obsession with re-collecting the toys of his childhood. To fund this addiction, he takes to stealing medication and selling it wholesale to a couple of drug dealers. In the midst of this busy schedule, he manages to have sex with numerous women, vomit profusely and bleed at various times in various states. All of this, of course, is finely detailed; it's the kind of book that Trey Parker and Matt Stone would have written, could they actually write.

But the second reaction to the book is also valid, because beneath "The Toy Collector's" persistent grotesquery lies a more complex novel about the difficulty of growing up in an entertainment-driven culture; if nothing else, "The Toy Collector" is a searing critique of materialism in contemporary American society. While Gunn's character may be an extreme, he faces the same problems as many of his generation — how can someone make a real connection with another person when we are raised to believe that human relationships are mediated solely by money, violence and sex, or that alcohol is a valid solution to everyday problems? Gunn's medium is toys, but it might as well be cars or sports equipment.

In many ways, Gunn has merely updated the classic tale of the misunderstood hero whose main flaw is not being evil but being different, whose sins derive not from a bad heart but from bad environment. The younger Gunn finds solace in his friends, but as an adult he finds he has lost them, and with them whatever semblance of a moral compass he might have had. Gunn's adult character is fueled in his nihilism by his conviction that society is essentially valueless, that having suffered his father's drunken rages as a child, as an adult he is allowed to do anything.

Of course, "The Toy Collector" is not nearly as accomplished a work as its most famous ancestor, "The Catcher in the Rye," It makes sudden and uncomfortable shifts between Gunn's nihilistic outlook on life and his fitful attempts at mature emotions. Despite the book's clean, precise prose, one never really believes it; Gunn's character is too much of an extreme. One minute he is copping pharmaceuticals and screaming in a drunken rage, the next he is contemplating the meaning of love.

Salinger was villified for his portrayal of an amoral nihilist, but his book is still held as one of the best critiques of mid-20th century American society. While Gunn will not achieve the same sort of status with "The Toy Collector," the book definitely proves he has it in him.

— Clay Risen (clay@flakmag.com)