In his well-received third novel, 2016’s Loner, Teddy Wayne put readers inside the mind of an awkward male college student who develops a disturbing obsession with a female classmate. His 2020 follow-up, Apartment, was about a shy aspiring writer driven to jealousy by his more talented friend. Wayne is a bard of male failure, insecurity, and resentment; unsurprisingly, the protagonist of his compelling new novel, The Great Man Theory, is not, in fact, a great man.
No, our antihero is someone for whom life hasn’t exactly worked out. Paul is a crotchety writer with no reputation to speak of and few worldly markers of prosperity. He spends his time hovering at the margins of a Brooklyn bourgeoisie personified by his more successful peers. His day job, as an adjunct at a local college, has recently been subject to a humiliating demotion. He can no longer afford his rent in South Slope, a neighborhood he chose in order to be close to his preteen daughter, Mabel. He is touchingly desperate for her approval, yet she prefers to spend her time with his ex-wife and her new husband at their expensive brownstone in the more fashionable Park Slope.
