A Fraction of the Whole
Steve Toltz, Spiegel & Grau February 2008
Reviewed by Allycen Quan, March 2008
What's it like to be raised by a "philosopher who's thought himself into a corner" – the brother of the most popular criminal in Australia? Jasper Dean tells his story, and his father Martin's, in the hilariously irreverent novel A Fraction of the Whole, by Steve Toltz. Most of us have issues with our parents; we want to be our own people, not carbon copies. Jasper is no different, but his father is so brilliantly dysfunctional that Jasper has all the more reason to stand in judgment; by the same token, Martin is a difficult man to detach from. Jasper is raised in a literal labyrinth, and dragged through mental hospitals, Paris, a scheme to make every Australian family millionaires, Thailand, and illegal re-entry into his mother country by the man who yanked him out of elementary school so that they could "rescue Nietzsche from the Nazis." It's no wonder that Jasper doesn't want to turn into his father; but at the end, will he be grateful for the adventure?
A Fraction of the Whole is the kind of novel that is as wonderful as it is implausible. The characters are fresh in every sense of the word, and every page is a glorious surprise.