Who's a Silly Boy?

Blake Smith on Peter Vack

This essay will appear in Issue 6 of the Mars Review of Books. Visit the MRB store here.

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Sillyboy: A Novel

by Peter Vack

C4g Books, 250 pp., $13.60

The protagonist of Sillyboy sees himself as “oppressed by, but masterfully resisting, a powerful, important, special sexuality”

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I learned of Peter Vack’s Sillyboy the same way I get most of my news, by reading the lolcow forums—anonymous message boards dedicated to gossiping about very minor celebrities. Vack frequently appears as a subject of commentary and slander on the threads dedicated to ‘leftcows’: people who are in some way connected to the ‘postleft’ podcasting circuit, Dimes Square, or otherwise live in New York and feel unconflicted about saying ‘retard.’ Lolcows is 4-chan meets Us Weekly for lonely millennial women. You can find actor-influencers Pariah the Doll and Ivy Wolk self-posting (committing cyber-selfharm) and almost feel digital culture reporter Katherine Dee lurkingly taking notes for her latest musings on how the internet is, like, totally changing everything. The shit-posters at the lolcow-leftcow threads are not fans of Vack, whom they allege to have a thinning hairline and to look at himself in the mirror during sex. Pretty low-stakes stuff, as far as problematic authors go!