Sissy is an hilarious romp of epic proportions, encompassing in its burlesque scope our modern crisis of masculinity, the banality of City work, our retreat into virtual lives and the alienating effects of modern technology, with lots of variegatedsexing in-between. Sissy is an anti-hero and antidote to Don Juan. He is a modern masculine counterweight and sad manifestation of the internet-induced fright of the real: a thirty-something wimp by day – literally and surreally re-born ofhis long-suffering mother each morning – and a would-be-Weinstein by virtual night. The novel’s brilliant overall set piece is a virtuosic attack on the notion of the male Romantic Hero and it is written, appropriately, in a language that is rich andflamboyant; enjoyably, hilariously, baroque but also an extraordinary reclamation of the narrative epic form for ‘now’.Ben Borek is unique: no-one else writes like this, or can write like this. His vision is unflinchingly dark but also, almost inexplicably, obscurely warm and deeply humane.