The Trouble Boy

The Trouble Boy by Tom Dolby was tedious to read.  The main character, and narrator (Toby), is just dumb and boring.  The story is about a guy who is supposedly looking for a permanent partner, while picking up one guy after another, indiscriminately, at gay clubs.  He has no taste about who he brings home.  There is no build up in this book, no development.  Toby is constantly fretting over finding a boyfriend, but he continues to act stupid right up to the end of the book.  A crisis of sorts appears near the end of the book when he’s in a car with some coworkers.  The movie star who is driving (high on drugs) decides (for no apparent reason) to intentionally back the car up into a crowd of people.  She kills one and maims many more.  The star’s publicist pulls everyone aside and gets them to agree to a story that it was an accident.  Toby goes along with this and lies to the police, because he thinks his job, which itself is getting him nowhere, is at stake.  Eventually he turns around and confesses the truth, but not for some time.  The whole incident makes no sense.  It makes no sense that it happened and it makes no sense that he would lie about it and risk a criminal charge.  The person he is protecting is no friend of his, nor are the other people involved.  What it reveals is that he’s lacking in moral sensibility, even a small amount of courage, and common sense.  Even at the end of the book, when he has a boyfriend, it’s clear that it’s not going to last.  He doesn’t change, he doesn’t learn anything about himself, and he’s still thinking in counterproductive ways.  Dolby has a new book out called The Sixth Form.  I won’t be reading it.