A review by djrmelvin
I Pass Like Night by Jonathan Ames

3.0

The main character of this book is self hating, self destructive, and has massive mommy issues. And that is pretty much all the book is about. This is a character study told in what would be a journal style if the chapters/entries were dated and we follow Alexander Vine through a series of interactions with girlfriends, friends that would be boyfriends, hookers, pickups, and the one group of people he seems to be at peace with - homeless beggers. There is an arc to the story, a very gentle one, but we're not given the ending. Despite the darkness, the lack of character development (Alexander is what he is, even if he can't admit it to himself), there's something very readable about a character who is so easy to see through. We don't have to discover what makes this man tick, instead, we follow along to see if he'll ever figure it out.