Oates writes What I Lived For from the point of view of forty-two-year-old Corky Corcoran, a minor real estate tycoon with political ambitions and a lavish lifestyle that compensates for his roots in the Irish ghetto. If we are to see him as a hero for our time, we must be generous.

He is "[t]oo restless to stay in one place for very long," having the "[m]etabolism of a God-damn monkey." Unlike Thoreau, who marched to a quietly measured drum, Corky marches to a heavy-metal rock band. Oates captures the quality of Corky's life perfectly in titles of chapters, such as '"He's Here Now, But He's Leaving,'" "Corky Commits a Felony," "Corky, Hungover at Home," "Corky Breaks Down," and "Corky Gears Up."

Corky is a drunk, a sexual predator, a man who responds to his Irish Catholicism in a WASP America by obsessing about...