The Untimely Death of Vice

THE NAMELESS NARRATOR of Lawrence Douglas’ new novel seems cut out to be the butt of an academic satire. Like so many fictional professors before him—in books by David Lodge, Michael Chabon, Philip Roth, and others—he is a middling writer turned reluctant professor at a small college, with a failing marriage that leaves him restless for adventure, sexual and otherwise. In Douglas’ previous novel, The Catastrophist, a similar hero embarked on a career of comically unsuccessful adultery.