First-person tragedies tend to progress towards disaster or epiphany, or, like some of Kazuo Ishiguro’s books, layer after layer of trauma is gradually revealed by a retrospective narrator. But Oxtoby’s downfall happens a third of the way through the book and the aftermath does not head towards much of an epiphany.

This Is How would be fascinating if it were a non-fiction account by a notorious criminal, mainly because Oxtoby’s thoughts in the second half of the book are remarkable only for their banality — self-pity rather than guilt dominates. But it is fiction and Hyland has defied the common decencies of fiction writing. Her rigorous realism is commendable, but it’s just not quite enough.

In Carry Me Down, the lead character was John, a 12-year-old boy whose parents find him increasingly creepy. And he is creepy, but John’s youth and the circumstances of his life give him enough appeal to arouse empathy with the reader. Only now and then does Oxtoby prompt the same disquieting mixture of compassion and repulsion. He is just a man with a surprisingly boring personality disorder.

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