Waking with a raging hangover and vague recollections of a lost weekend, it’s just another Monday for Christopher Nosnibor, but after this typically bad start, his week rapidly gets worse. Subjected to ritual use and abuse by his power-hungry bosses at the Corporation – a job he hates – and his manipulative, self-seeking partner, he begins to spiral further into depression and alcoholism. Christopher is in many ways a postmodern everyman, struggling to cope with a life of mundane office jobs and a society obsessed with exteriors. But he is also something of a social misfit who’s politics and musical tastes do not conform with the mainstream.
The social whirl amidst which he finds himself compels Chris to contemplate the darker aspects of human nature and his own psyche, with increasingly concerning results. His career is placed in jeopardy, but his primary concern remains retaining his sanity and dignity in his increasingly troubled home life as he grows ever more lost in his thoughts and a series of strange and horrific encounters.
Gross misconduct in the workplace is only the beginning, and things get weird as Chris reaches new depths, while also discovering the depths others will go to get ahead in their chosen careers. As the novel progresses, Nosnibor’s character – and also the narrative – slowly begins to disintegrate.
After becoming involved in a number of other people’s relationships, Christopher is witness to the murder of one of his partner’s friends, a wannabe media darling by the name of Briony Entwistle. Confused and full of alcohol, Chris loses the plot and via a circuitous route eventually finds himself in Glasgow without really knowing why. On his return, things become even stranger.
Exiled In Domestic Life is the story of one man’s struggle for survival in contemporary society: darkly satirical, the book is as much driven by psychodramatic twists and a relentless narrative as it is by plot. It’s a tale of brutality, political incorrectness and unreliable memories. The misanthropic first-person narrative burns through a mass of sex, violence and unsavoury characters en route to an unexpected and unredemptive end.