The Best Man, by Stephen Bond
Dealing with people is not easy, nor is dealing with the (great and small) traumas that arise when one’s relationships do not go as desired. Different folks deal with these difficulties in different ways, developing their own imperfect adaptations for navigating the social landscape.
This, I think, is basically what The Best Man sets out to explore. As one proceeds through scenes involving several different viewpoint characters, one gets a sense of how they’ve learned to interact with people, how they’ve come to think about their relationships with those around them. Every viewpoint character has dealt with some struggle and come out of it with certain tools for getting by as a social being, but they are always provisional tools. None of them are fully satisfied with, or fully in control of their social lives. They’ve just learned to satisfy their needs as best they can.
I felt that all of the viewpoint characters were very believable, and most of them richly realized. Verisimilitude is prized. The author has a remarkable talent for conveying a feeling of who a character is, and why they are that way, even if that character features in only a small part of the story. To read The Best Man is an exercise in empathizing with a broad range of different types of people.
At the heart of it is the main viewpoint character, Aiden; to explore his psyche is to at least dip one’s toes into madness. But it is a madness that is all the more chilling because it is understandable. Every one of Aiden’s bizarre acts and wild misperceptions make perfect sense in the context of his attitudes toward himself and others - attitudes which arose as adaptations (or rather, maladaptations) to his circumstances, allowing him to fulfil his psychological needs when more wholesome solutions were not forthcoming. It all makes sense; it feels real, which makes it powerful and disturbing.
Somewhat more spoilery musings for the initiated:
Suppose that you want to be loved and respected (which, I think, will not require much imagination on the part of most people). Now suppose that you are looked down upon by all - for your awkwardness, for your weird movements, for your strange sense of style, for your poor ability to read social cues. Suppose that you are viewed with contempt, or at best, pity from those around you.
If those things were all true, could you accept it? Could you admit it to yourself?
Aiden could not, and that is why he inhabits a world that is, to a great extent, his own fantasy. Reality, after all, is a constant onslaught against Aiden’s sense of self-worth. To combat it, he retreats into a world in which anything that can affirm his value is distorted and amplified to grotesque proportions, and anything else is ignored. His resulting flights of grandiosity and inability to tell when people have problems with his behavior only serve to marginalize him further, reinforcing his need to ignore reality.
While all of the viewpoint characters are well-written, the dynamics of Aiden’s mental landscape are rendered in especially nauseating detail. I feel that the author’s skill in conveying this material is exceptional. The work is beautifully, evocatively uncomfortable.