God Hates Us All: A Rebellious Look into the Hopeful and Hopeless Moments of Life
by Zachary Leeman

I now have a new favorite author. His name is Hank Moody and he does not exist.
God Hates Us All is a new Bukowski- esque look into life by a fairly new writer named Hank Moody. The only real problem is Hank Moody is not a real writer. He is not even a real person. Hank Moody is a character derived from the imagination of television writer Tom Kapinos. He is the main character of the successful Showtime series Californication and is played by David Duchovny. In the show, Hank is a formerly successful writer who has been morally and physically drained by the good city of Los Angeles, like so many other great artists and writers alike. In the show, Hank has found success with his new book God Hates Us All and even has it turned into a crappy movie titled A Crazy Little Thing Called Love, thus carelessly throwing Hank into his new found mid-life crisis, writer’s block, and sexual misdoings that the good city of Los Angeles cannot help but encourage.
Now the show has found such a loyal following, that Showtime has decided that most people would probably read Hank Moody if he were a real person and writer, so they have released God Hates Us All in the hopes to start a new trend of people reading books by their favorite fictional authors. A strange concept indeed. But, alas, I am here to tell you that this gimmick has worked.
God Hates Us All is not the literary masterpiece that it is made out to be, but it contains something that few novels have in this dying age of literature. A voice. A true literary voice that drips through the character’s dialogue and the author’s witty thoughts and comments on life. In the first chapter, we are introduced to the unnamed narrator who has fallen in love with a speed addicted older woman named Daphne. Daphne and her anti-cultural behavior have inspired the narrator to drops out of college, disconnect from his family, and move in with her to become a musician(he only knows a few chords). And from there we are thrust into situation after situation only enhancing the narrator’s self-loathing and misunderstanding of life and people. He is thrust into relationship after relationship and only becomes more hopeless. He is stabbed, kicked out of hotels, travels to Korea only to return with more self-loathing than ever, and he witnesses a homeless man burst into…well, to reveal anymore would just be plain cruel.
God Hates Us All is the best kind of “growing pains” story. It is true to life. This is not Stand By Me. I suppose if you took the scripts for Stand By Me and Good Will Hunting and had Bukowski rewrite them after a fifth of vodka, then you may have a rough outline of what is in store with this novel. It is witty, sharp, fresh, and most importantly it carries an understanding of the true nature of the life: the mishaps, the irony, the strange and almost humorous tragedies that life can carry. That is what makes God Hates Us All stand out, not necessarily the story, but the almost universal feelings towards how unfair and far too complicated life can be.
In a society where it is the social norm not to read(and if you do, it is the social norm to read half baked love stories about vampires), it is refreshing to find a voice. It is refreshing to find a literary voice that will not lie to us, that will tell us the truth, a voice that understands the strange and ironic nature of life and the problems we sometimes face growing up and attempting to mature in this crazy world. It is refreshing to find a voice that tells us that life is much more satisfying when you fall and get back up rather than always avoiding the fall.
That voice is here. I have found it. His name is Hank Moody. And he does not exist.