Jackie Ess

Darryl Cook is a man who seems to have everything: a quiet home in Western Oregon, a beautiful wife, and a lot of friends to fuck her while he watches. But as he explores the cuckolding lifestyle, he finds himself tugging at threads that threaten to unravel his marriage, his town, and himself. With empathy and humor, debut author Jackie Ess crafts a kaleidoscopic meditation on marriage, manhood, dreams, basketball, sobriety, and the secret lives of Oregonians. "Underneath the sharp satire and hilarious sexual irreverence this is a deadly serious book: a brilliant novel of a seeker, like The Pilgrim's Progress refracted by queer internet culture." -Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby

Darryl

Sarah Christine Gill

I used to hike all the time, that was sort of who I was. When I say I'm not a nature guy, it's because I'm not into the sport of it. But the feeling's there. When I'm in the woods I start to get this feeling of life, I start to see the whole forest as one living thing. Then I start to see the human species that way, as a tree whose roots maybe don't go down so deep, and whatever this tree is, I must be a dead leaf of it. What if everybody else is a live one, or a pinecone, or a nut? What are they going to do when they find out about me? Pruning time. 

Lindsay

I’m not really a nature guy, which is a shame, living out here. Everybody else is, but I think maybe they don’t mean it, they’re doing it because they’re supposed to.

It’s certainly not at all how I was raised to be. But isn’t that the problem? Everything they told me to be, I never could be. I never could be because I never was. Does that make sense?

Maybe what I like so much about being in nature sometimes is seeing this level where it’s all automatic. Does that make any sense? It’s confirming and it’s relaxing. There’s a feeling of being left behind by all of it. By people too. It’s intense, humiliating, and kind of numb.

And I’m lost too, in this kind of ecstasy of shame that takes me out of myself, and deeper into this kind of ocean roar feeling.

Mostly I’m just tired all the time. I wish I had a friend. I wish I was a priest, or a woman, or nothing at all. Actually I don’t wish any of that I just wish I didn’t have to be what I am. How do you get motivated to make a change? Hypnosis?

Is everybody else simpler than me or is that just the view from the inside?

She reads novels, much more than I do, she just never talks about them. She consumes them. Sex too. It’s all yummy. Women are so good at that.

That’s one mood, but I want to feel more alive, lighter. Maybe guys like me can’t. That feeling of aliveness was always what I was interested in when I read about psychology. Who gets to feel alive? What makes us light up?

Maybe watching and listening are the bravest things a guy can do. Can you face your own inferiority? Can you watch yourself be replaced?

Darryl quotes

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