A Fraction of the Whole is, in short, a terrific novel — at least across the 450 pages I’ve read thus far. It’s by a young Aussie named Steve Toltz and tells the story of a family of deep-thinking, antisocial outcasts.
It’s got the epic quality of that John Irving Owen Meaney-Cider House period in the ’90s–sweeping tales of a family spread across multiple generations, revealing all sorts of bizarre behaviors and dark secrets.
As I mentioned, Toltz is young, like 37. The guy can paint a metaphor like no author I’ve read in years. (If I have any complaint about the book, it’s that he relies on this gift a little too much, which has an effect similiar to celebrating Christmas a half dozen days out of the year.) In a scene preceding the following excerpt, he writes of teenage protagonist Jasper Dean attending the funeral of his one friend at school. Nestled into a cliff overlooking the sea, Jasper’s school has had something of a suicide epidemic, children pitching themselves off the cliff to the rocks below. His pal Brett, whose father, Mr. White, is a teacher at the school, has done just that. As the students gather around the grave, Toltz writes, “I thought our school uniforms made us look like postal workers congregated to mail a colleague back to God. I imagined ‘Return to Sender’ stencilled neatly on the casket.”
Brett has left Jasper a note instructing him to tell a gorgeous upperclasswoman he’s never met that he carried undying love for her to his grave. Jasper dubs the girl “the Towering Inferno”–”with that flaming red hair she looked like a skyscraper on fire.”
Jasper makes eye contact with the Towering Inferno for the first time in this passage.
After school we used to stand around at train stations for hours (try doing that into your twenties – the thrill is gone, believe me). The train guards were always telling us to go home, but there’s really no law against standing on the platform not catching trains. That afternoon, I shadowed the Towering Inferno to the far end of the station. She was standing with her usual crowd and I was gaping from behind a pylon thinking my usual obsessive thoughts: wishing she would fall into some danger so I might rescue her, spitting on myself for fetishising a girl I’d never met, longing to take a personal memento from her as a holy relic, indulging in a sexual fantasy in which we intersect at right angles, and generally planning a systematic exploration of her cathedral-like edifice.
She and her friends kept edging farther down the platform, so to keep my eyes on her I had to step out from my hiding place. One of her friends – Tony, a boy with a slight hunch I knew because he had once taken a pack of cigarettes from me in exchange for the observation that my eyes were set too close together – unzipped his fly and gyrated his crotch in the Towering Inferno’s general direction. She turned away in disgust and found herself trapped in my stare. It caught us both off guard. Then a strange thing happened: she stared back. Her eyes, unblinking and wild, dared me not too look away. The moment stretched its way into infinity, then snapped back to about a nanosecond and rebounded, so all in all it lasted about eight and a half seconds.
I turned away and moved to a public phone. I put some coins in the slot and dialed a number at random.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello.’
‘Who’s this?’
‘It’s me. Is that you?’
‘Who is this? What do you want?’
‘Never mind that,’ I said. ‘How are you?’
‘Who is this?’
‘I told you, it’s me.’
I could still feel the Towering Inferno’s eyes on me. I knew what to do: I shook my head vehemently and laughed a loud, unnatural laugh before pausing to nod sagely, as though the person on the other end of the phone had made a funny yet offensive comment that on further reflection proved wise. I turned casually to face her, but her back was turned. I felt a tiny thorn prick my ego.
It was getting dark. Everyone wordlessly agreed that loitering on the station platform had gone stale – until tomorrow – and when the next train arrived, we all filed in.
At the other end of the packed carriage there was a commotion, and a small crowd formed a circle – bad news for someone. Circles of people always are. Honestly, sometimes I think human beings should be prohibited from forming groups. I’m no fascist, but I wouldn’t mind if we had to live out our lives in single file.
I heard happy cheers and joyous laughter. That meant someone was suffering. My heart felt sick for the poor sucker. Thankfully Charlie was home sick and Brett was dead, so whoever they were humiliating this time had nothing to do with me. Still, I pushed through the crowd to see who it was.
Mr. White.
The students had torn the hat off his head and were waving it in the air, asserting their power over him. Mr. White was trying to get the hat back. Ordinarily, even the most rebellious young crackhead can’t physically assault a teacher – emotionally and psychologically, sure; physically, no – but Mr. White was a teacher made evil by gossip, and that made him fair game.
‘Hey!’ I shouted.
Everyone looked over at me. This was my first stand against the bulies, against the ruthlessness of the human pack animal, and I was determined not to disappoint myself. But then four things happened in quick succession.
The first was that I noticed the person holding the hat was the Towering Inferno.
Second, my shouting ‘Hey!’ was interpreted not as a heroic ‘Hey!’ but a ‘Hey, throw me the hat!’
She threw it to me.