Rontel is narrated by an unnamed, unemployed loser-hero traversing his way through 21st-century Chicago. The plot goes something like this: the narrator wakes up at his girlfriend’s house, rides the bus to the apartment he shares with his brother and the titular cat, Rontel, looks for a job, plays video games, takes care of a baby in an apartment with a tarantula, talks to homeless people outside a hostage situation, goes to a beekeeping class with his girlfriend, eats pie, waits for the bus. But what makes the book so captivating is the voice: the narrator’s internal monologue (sometimes dialogue) digresses into outlandish observations that don’t feel put-on but rather become a distinct and natural outgrowth of the narrator’s situation and ponderings on existence.
