Richard Price has an amazing ear and eye for the street. He presents us [in "Ladies' Man"] with a cityscape that is filled with powerful spooks….

Richard Price collects the dung and scrap heaps of our urban culture in a frightening, electrical style. But the book's main problem is Kenny himself; Kenny gets in the way of the narrative with his 50-cent truths. At times he sounds like a hip Benjamin Franklin in platform shoes, dreaming wise thoughts as he gobbles on a stale roll: "Why was it that everybody seemed to have more friends when they were kids than when they were adults?" (p. 32)

It's this sort of claptrap that harms the book, because it gives us Richard Price's silliness rather than Kenny Becker's infantile rage. But "Ladies' Man" still has its bite. It's a disturbing, freaky novel about sexual disgust and the pornography of our everyday...