("The Barbarians Are Coming")

[fiefoe]

capon: a male chicken castrated when young to improve the quality of its flesh for food. 

As the novel opens, the narrator/protagonist, a young cook, has an out-sized squeamishness about preparing capon for dinner, dinner being a blind date he unwittingly agreed to, just as his dentist-in-training girlfriend is coming from Iowa for an unsolicited visit.

The first chapter has all the hallmarks of a great short story, (the title could be "A Laden Table",) and that's partially my problem with it. With clever phrases strewn all over the place, the reader has to pick her way through rather carefully. (Of a butcher - he kills things for a living, he knows things; in relationships - I am Pip, fat on another's generosity but crippled by the uncertainty over what motivates my benefactor's heart; of flambe - people love small fires, a throwback to primitive times; on the Drakes of Drake's cakes - such monumental acts of ownership; Oh, the privilege of being an American, cars and quick escapes!)

David Wong Louie's excellent writing works as a deterrent secondly in that, the better drawn a character is, the harder it is to stay in the character's head, since said character is morose, insecure and selfish. I failed to make it through "The Frog King" by Adam Davies for that reason as well. Either I just haven't enough patience for their fragile sense of manhood, or theirs is an over-represented demographics.