The technical invention of The Fan Man is at the heart of Kotzwinkle's narrative. Since Badorties is nearly always the source of action, Kotzwinkle has him recount the events of his life in a perpetual conversational present tense. His language is a street-hip vernacular laced with literary references, and he is essentially telling his story while it is happening. Accordingly, Kotzwinkle alternates between an immediate first-person voice ("I am alone in my pad, man . . .") and a kind of present progressive tense ("Sitting in chair, staring at wall . . .") which develops a quality of immediacy. For short interludes, the narrative focus leaves Badorties and there are brief descriptions of action often written in a nasty parody of Puerto Rican English and short dialogues set like a script without stage direction or the player's name. But most of the book is located in Badorties's mind, and the organization of his thoughts...