2014, self-published, 101 pages

Andy Nowicki’s ugly little memoir is to this reader, an exercise in what I would describe as redemptive remasculation in the face of our witheringly slutty society. Where I was a lucky soul for being a think-headed knucklehead who felt alienated from birth, even concerning my parents, and hence survived the empty spiritual quarter of the modern teen years comparatively intact, Andy describes how he bought into the whole civilized timeshare for the soul. He describes adolescence as a process in which he was eaten from the inside out by our cankerous society as repayment for his loyalty to certain pillars of faith by which we humans cast judgment back down upon ourselves.

The best portion of the book in scholarly terms is Andy’s reading of Adam and Eve from Genesis, in which he exposes what is generally thought of by unbelievers as empty folk tradition or blind faith, for what it really is, a story about how society has taken sex and used it to debase us. Andy’s Treatment is much more nuanced than my summation and I highly recommend you acquiring the book even if just to read from page 20-25. In my opinion Andy should write an allegorical reading of the bible and market it to young men.

From page 62-85 he shines brightly again as he discusses God, faith and status, critiques “masculinists,” and discusses the importance that the movie Fight Club seems to hold for men of his age who began waking up to the animus of the world in the late 1990s.

A special joy I had in reading this book was sitting on a bench at a bus stop next to a pious African woman from some English speaking nation, who disdained to converse with the local black men, but sought my apparently educated company, until she looked at the cover of the book I was reading, and, knowing full well what a “Wanker” was turned away from me to let the rest of her Sunday fade into dismay.

In Confessions of A Would-Be Wanker Andy Nowicki crafts a call to the souls of young men to maintain a sacred aspect within themselves, and to embrace self-discipline in the face of society’s clarion call to settle down as a chained beast in the postmodern carnal sewer.