'Kill Your Boyfriend' came out a year before Columbine. The eponymous Columbine. The tragic and fearful Columbine. It would be understandable in this post-Columbine, post-Vtech, post-9/11 world if a reader might have difficulty with some aspects of this story, but if art is war on another battlefront, Morrisson is a sniper behind enemy lines.

Like a sniper, his work is rarely pretty to see, skilled as it may be. It reminds us of the suddenness of this big, ugly world. Sometimes Morrison misses his mark, usually when he grows overly self aware. However, the lighthearted and straightforward tone of this book means he has little chance to derail his own story.

Morrisson is a prophet by way of pessimism. It seems that by expecting the worst from mankind, we can rarely be disappointed. However, like Chekhov, Morrisson is tempered by a firm belief in a single person riding over that bloody tide by strength of personality.

This need not mean the unattached, humorless anti-hero that is so often cast as Nietzsche's Ubermensch; Too often, we forget that Nietzsche was the philosopher who told us to love and seek beauty and dance, and that skepticism can free us from the static even as it reminds us why our heart aches.

Morrisson tells of growing up confused, self-unknown, with a need to scratch an itch without a place. Morrisson tends to find that place in an unlikely locale--be it a cybernetic dog or a homicidal teen girl.

Morrisson's search for beauty in all things horrific and horror in all things beautiful comes from his need to be different at any cost. In The Invisibles, this often interferes with our empathy or even our comprehension, but it is not so forced here.

If it upset you that 9/11 turned into the unquestioned Iraq war, or that the Vtech massacre will more likely result in a new book by Dr. Phil than in any change in how we treat each other, then perhaps it is time to take a little revenge. Perhaps it is time to sit back for a moment and wonder what it might be like to Kill Your Boyfriend. ( )