MY AMERICAN UNHAPPINESS, a novel by Dean Bakopoules

This quirky, funny and disturbing novel has an ingratiating and original hero, Zeke Pappas.  Zeke works for a dubious operation about to implode, but not before he can amass multitudes of responses to his question, "What makes you unhappy?"  Madison, WI, is the city in which Zeke lives along with his seriously ill mother and young twin nieces.  The love Zeke has for his mother & orphaned nieces is endearing.  The responses to his unhappiness project are both hysterical and poignant.  I was drawn towards Zeke with his off-beat humor and tenderness and rooted for him to find love.  But, by the end Zeke's benign personality takes a turn to the darkside. He becomes pathetic, perverse and repels everyone who felt fondness for him, myself included.  Bakopoulos is a gifted writer; a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. Bakopooulos not only paints the midwestern landscape and culture but imbues the reader with a real sense of melancholy & detachment stemming from our society as a whole.   Zeke states, "the computer, the phones, the BlackBerry, the Facebook-is horrifying.  When one does such a thing, one is visited by unhappy images, thoughts of doom and woe."  "You Tube, MySpace, Blogs-all of these things are ways for us to make ourselves protagonists on a very crowded, violent and unjust stage." The author has clearly identified American Unhappiness, meaningless connections & dire loneliness.  Reading this brilliant novel left me feeling depressed so I recommend this book, NOT! (Although I do recommend reading my blogs.)