The narrator and central character in A Fan's Notes is Frederick Exley, who, although purportedly fictional, is informed by authorial experience as much as by authorial imagination.

Critical popularity of this novel owes a great deal to the irony implicit in Exley's double-duty as "fictional" protagonist and "factual" author.

Fred Exley behaves irresponsibly and irrespressibility. He is ambitious, questing — first for fame, then for sanity. Hovering always just above the genius/madness divide, Exley heroworships, faces his flaws, rails against false promise and seeks solace (or oblivion) daily at the bottom of bottles.

Inconsolable even when institutionalized for mental illness, Exley finds marriage no safe haven, either. His appetites are fierce, his disaffection and dissatisfaction profound, but Exley never points fingers or foists blame onto others. Owning an abstract, diffuse rage against the impossibility of enacting Utopian ideals, Exley accepts "responsibility" (the shame, the guilt) for being...