Dr. Kalbfleisch and the Chicken Restaurant

Sarah Robertson is the trade, scholarly, and reference editor of the
Canadian Book Review Annual.

Raymond, the manager of a seedy chicken restaurant, is an alienated,
self-admitted failure whose yearnings for connection are rekindled when
his biological mother, Gloria, and the identical twin brother he thought
had died in the womb unexpectedly enter his life.

Rather than joy and affirmation, the reunion yields terror and angst.
Gloria is a pathological liar with the sensibilities of a box of hair.
Brother Dwayne is a repulsive thug who goes around passing himself off
as Raymond and stalking his brother’s ex-wife, Mara. Almost as
tormenting as his new family are Raymond’s relations with his
difficult boss (Dr. Kalbfleisch), his obnoxious fellow employees, and
his embittered ex-wife. His one satisfying relationship, with his
sad-eyed dog, Burt, is predictably cut short.

In this novel’s relentlessly bleak urban landscape, people are
walking emblems of rage, anxiety, depression, and psychosis. Random acts
of violence, cruelty, and casual destruction are the norm. Many of the
novel’s events have no meaning beyond their inherent shock value.
(Mara discovers baby remains in her backyard; 20 minutes into his
adoptive mother’s cremation, Raymond insists on viewing her roasting
carcass.) Such events give the novel a surreal quality that undermines
suspension of disbelief.

Raymond is pathetic, but he isn’t nearly as nasty as some of the
other characters. Even so, it’s hard to muster even a twinge of
concern as his inevitable confrontation with Dwayne draws near. In this
energetically written but thoroughly misanthropic novel, the only
character deserving of real sympathy is, fittingly, the dog.