Am I supposed to like Jack? I don’t think I do. He’s kind of a scumbag. Cheating on his wife with multiple women, he’s a chronic substance abuser, and he seems to just skate through life without reaping the consequences. OK – strike the “kind of” – he IS a scumbag.
We never get the answer of why Jack threw away his life as a physicist, or why he keeps a pair of women’s thong underwear in his pocket, so I’m not sure I understand why Jack is so broken. Perhaps if I got some more of that detail, I’d be a little sympathetic toward him.
In my opinion, the book started getting good when Jack went to jail. Unfortunately, this was about 2/3 of the way into the book. The author spent more time developing the characters of the prisoners than he did with Sarah/Delilah, Rosemary, etc.
I also wasn’t completely sold with the way he just walked away from Rosemary (the sugar mama) at the end. Seems like she wouldn’t let him get away so easily, and would probably seek revenge if he screwed her over (pun intended).
However, this was an interesting read, and kept me entertained the entire way through. The time Jack spends in jail shows that he does have some good in him, but I just don’t know if it will be sustained.
I had to look up the word “beatitude” even though I’m sure I stumbled across it in my many years of Catholic school. It means “blessing.” He is certainly blessed with dumb luck throughout the book, mostly by the generosity and deep financial pockets of Rosemary. He is blessed to have met Sarah, who is the love of his life, although he is in an alcoholic haze when it happens. Is he blessed to get a second chance when he leaves jail? We’ll never know the answer to that, but let’s hope so.