A Better Class of People

Lopez returns with a weird and wildly imaginative outing (after All Back Full) that jumps around in time with a highly unreliable narrator. The unnamed protagonist tells the reader he’s not named Will (“in case you were wondering,” he says). He begins his days standing in traffic, a form of exercise that might be an experiment (a sort of anti-explanation emerges: “I’m not one to volunteer information. If they ask I’ll tell them it’s to stretch my legs or get some air”). He has worked on TV or at an office where he was sexually harassed, or maybe he was a professional tennis player or a mediocre bartender. What’s clear is he suffers from an allergy to gluten and loves pie and guns, or so he says, but he can’t remember. He sweats a lot and talks about living at the beginning of a new ice age, and while it’s all a bit confusing, Lopez’s sinewy prose and dark lines have a touch of humor at their core: “Sometimes I think of myself as a contestant on a game show but I don’t know the rules or what I’m supposed to do or if anyone is watching.” It’s a peculiar if winning look at an American psyche on overdrive. (Mar.)