by Nicole Yurcaba
Imagine this: 22 years after the release of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, its main character, Charlie, reprises as a person named Darryl in an Oregon town. Sam is now a person named Mindy; Patrick is a working-class, basketball-loving guy named Bill, and the football-playing macho, athletic Brad is now a Patrick Bateman-like grown man named Clive. The drug parties where Charlie first ate marijuana-laced brownies are now private sexcapades where Darryl watches his wife, Mindy, have sex with other men, including Bill and Clive. Meanwhile, as readers progress through Darryl’s epistolary-like narratives, they discover a person questioning their identity, their purpose, and giving philosophical anecdotes that leave readers thinking “Yes, yes. Darryl gets it. Darryl gets ME.” If you can picture any of this, then the magnetic, engrossing latest release from Clash Books titled Darryl (by Jackie Ess) is the book for you.
Like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Darryl draws on all the so-called hedonistic aspects of modern America to craft a solid story—sex, drugs, pop culture. Nonetheless, like Melissa Falvino’s Tomboyland, Darryl provides an insight to the underground, often taboo sexual subcultures that often lie unnoticed in small-town America. This mix is part of Darryl’s charm. Darryl is a white male, in his 40s. He identifies as a “cuck:” “I love watching a guy fuck my wife. Nothing better. But a human. Not a robot. Not an evolutionary fragment. Not a vampire. Not Hannibal Lecter. Not a fucking space alien.” The eponymous novel detailing Darryl’s story, however, isn’t just collection of sex-filled narratives from a perverted voyeur. In fact, it’s the complete opposite. Darryl is deep, philosophical. He thinks, not only about himself and his actions, but about others and theirs. That’s why fans of the cult classic The Perks of Being a Wallflower will find themselves thinking “Hmmm. Charlie much?” It’s Darryl’s Charlie-like sensitivity, thoughtfulness, and involvement in the cuckolding lifestyle that separates him from others, even his friend Bill, who has sex with Mindy while Darryl watches. Meanwhile, Darryl’s foil is Clive, the ultraviolent, manipulative, and sadistic “therapist” Darryl consults after a brief hospitalization.
While Charlie in Perks is an anthem with a human body for teenage exploration, individualism, and recovery, Darryl in Darryl is a banner for self-discovery and self-love. Readers see Darryl doubting himself, doubting others, and questioning the rules that organize society into neat little boxes that, quite frankly, maybe don’t even exist: “Maybe that’s what humanity is, not the human species but humanity, culture, a sedimentation of little cults, each following one guy who’s worth it. All that energy, all that history, somebody was packing heat.” They also witness his maturity, his recognition that what he’s been told he is maybe isn’t so: “I guess I’m always a little afraid that they’ll make me feel guilty for how I see the world. I’m really open to talk to everyone as long as you respect me, as long as you understand that being a cuckold is not up for debate.” More importantly, Darryl’s intimate confessions encourage readers to embrace the characteristics they know are truly theirs and celebrate them: “I don’t think I’m the way I am because of what happened to me as a kid, but I feel there’s this hypersensitivity I’ve always had. This way another guy could make me feel like I’m not real.”
Similar to Charlie’s experiences in Perks attuning readers to the perpetual cycles of violence that occurs unnoticed in families, Darryl’s brushes with suicidal thoughts and disassociation show readers what happens when a person isn’t free to express themselves or live as their true self: “We’re supposed to believe in ourselves like we’re always changing and to feel this sense of possibility.” Most of all, Darryl serves as an example of not only the toxic masculinity that society reinforces in males, but also the toxic positivity that, unfortunately, much of mainstream America embraces: “I sometimes think I ought to be more frightened. Frightened of myself and of everybody else.” Darryl also warns readers, “I think I have this prejudice that every rock is worth turning over. That’s not how it should be.”
Just as The Perks of Being a Wallflower encouraged readers to find their own group and never forget the people who accept them for who they are, so does Darryl. By its end, readers find themselves not only cheering for our protagonist, but also exploring their own situations, beliefs, and experiences. Thus, Darryl’s experiences become an undeniable catalyst for self-exploration. Darryl also proves to readers that it’s never too late, no matter the restrictions society says exist due to age or ability.
Darryl is an important, significant novel that has the power to catapult numerous conversations—specifically society’s rejections of certain subcultures; the limits society places on individuals due to identity; the privilege and power certain individuals possess and retain—to the forefront. Because of its bluntness, its honesty, it’s one of Clash Book’s many gems. Powerful and magnetic, it possesses the intellectual and philosophical depth of Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man and the dark humor of a David Sedaris’s best essays.
Nicole Yurcaba (Ukrainian: Нікола Юрцаба) is a Ukrainian-American poet and essayist. Her poems and essays have appeared in The Atlanta Review, The Lindenwood Review, Whiskey Island, Raven Chronicles, Appalachian Heritage, North of Oxford, and many other online and print journals. Nicole holds an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University, is the recipient of a July 2020 Writing Residency at Gullkistan, Creative Center for the Arts in Iceland, and is a Tupelo Press June 2020 30 for 30 featured poet. Her poetry collection Triskaidekaphobia is forthcoming Black Spring Group in 2022. She teaches poetry workshops for Southern New Hampshire University and works as a career counselor for Blue Ridge Community College.
