The Toy Collector
A novel by James Gunn

The other day I was discussing Cider House Rules with a friend, and I told her how surprised I was by the film. The previews, to my eye, present the film as a charming coming-of-age story (of the always-pretty Tobey Maguire) with a warm father-son relationship between Tobey and Michael Caine. I commented that, despite having read the reviews, I didn't realize how much of the film was about the abortion debate, a subject I wasn't prepared for that lazy Saturday afternoon.

"I don't like being surprised," my friend replied. "I want to know what to expect."

I nodded, though I can think of a few recent examples of surprises that worked: American Beauty, Run Lola Run, the book High Fidelity. But, like Cider House Rules for me, some surprises don't work.

Toy Collector, a novel by James Gunn, is one of those surprises.

It was recommended to me by an acquaintance who works at my local comic-book store. "I think you'll like it," Mark said. "It's about a guy sort of our age who starts selling drugs in order to afford all the toys he played with as a kid. It's really funny and weird."

"Ha, ha!" I said, sounding much like a Dave Barry column. "That does sound funny." Mark loaned me his preview copy of the book, due in May, and I started in on it.

It was not what I expected.

The novel is indeed about a guy (who shares the author's name, for whatever reason) who begins to sell drugs to finance his vintage-toy collection. And I think I understand why Mark liked it, the same way I understand why another male friend so enjoyed Three Kings. Basically, it's a guy's book. And when I say that, I don't mean to disparage any woman who might enjoy explicit descriptions of vomiting and meaningless violence. It's just ... not for me.

James lives in New York City and works as a hospital orderly. He is, for lack of a better word, a sociopath, and treats everyone in his life like garbage, from the sweet girlfriend he terrorizes to the parents he openly mocks. All of this seems to be going somewhere -- the thing about most books is that they can't let someone be an asshole just for the sake of being an asshole -- but James becomes such a senseless mess of emotional abuse and drug use that we lose interest midway through the story. The obligatory revelation at the end of the book attempts to explain it all, but we're left feeling sorry not for James, but for the people who have made the mistake of caring about him.

Early on, James visits an antique-toy store, which fulfills his fetish for the metal robots he played with in the 1970s. Returning home, he shares his thoughts with us: "I stared at the ceiling. Nostalgia, I thought. We're trapped in it. Was this lust for toys my way of refusing to accept the present? I had dropped out of school. My brother was ashamed of me. My old friends were gone. I was going nowhere. A loser. I didn't want to think about it anymore so I staggered into the bathroom and masturbated."

I was going along just fine until that last part, when I could almost hear my mother's voice saying, "Now, honey, was that last part really necessary?"

Later on, he's talking with his friend Nancy about her baby. She asks him why he doesn't like children, and James replies, "I don't know. One thing is I'm always afraid I'm going to want to fuck it. That'd suck, right? You'd have this kid, this cute little sexual animal, it'd be running around. You'd have to hug it and kiss it and sit it on your lap but not fuck it."

"That's disgusting," Nancy replies. Oh, Nancy -- you don't know the half of it.

We're treated to flashbacks of his childhood, playing with the friends he still thinks of. At first the memories are sort of charming, but even they have a disturbing element. When a battle between the friends' Fisher-Price soldiers and the enemy troops turned into scenes of beheading and -- oh, yes -- necrophilia, I was lost.

James is a character headed down the path of fucked-up-edness not seen in such visceral glory since, say, Pink Floyd's The Wall. And while grossness has its place -- my favorite part of Starship Troopers was watching Patrick Muldoon's brain get sucked out -- I need balance. This book didn't have enough going on to make it worthwhile.

The other day, I e-mailed Mark to let him know I'd be returning his book shortly. "I hope you liked it," he wrote back brightly. Ummm ... Mark? Let's just say... it was a surprise.

RE-READ FACTOR: The scenes where James (the character, not the writer) and his friends stage their mock toy battles can be amusing and are probably worth at least a couple of reads... at least until, you know, the necrophilia and all that kick in.

SEQUEL FACTOR: Since Gunn (the writer, not the character) has a colorful screenwriting background (Tromeo and Juliet as well as scripts for Spy vs. Spy and Scooby Doo, according to his bio), perhaps he'll be too busy to produce a sequel. One can only hope.

STRONG CHICK FACTOR: I experienced some satisfaction when James' girlfriend decides she's not going to take it anymore, but even then it seemed the scene was designed to elicit sympathy for James, so the righteous chick ass-kicking was muted.

-- Jennifer Rose Hale

The Toy Collector, published by Bloomsbury Publishing, will be available in hardcover in May

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