The story starts as Jim, now wheelchair-bound, is at his work, a business that makes formal wear for children exclusively staffed by the disabled. His goal in life at the moment is to construct a strange structure from his son's drawings on a vacant property he owns by his house. Its in mid construction and has become a kind of minor curiosity. Things are not going great for Jim, self-medicating with weed he and his wife are clearly struggling with losing their son, but also with never knowing him. Jim is clear in his minds narration that he never really knew his pothead slacker son and that building the monument is his last remaining way of connecting to his son. Of course the inverse-quixotic quest to build is ruined by a revelation: the drawings the son made were of a level in a video game his son could never get to so he drew it while stoned. This leads Jim to try to chase after a connection to his son via getting to this level he never managed to get to, in the process mimicking his image of his son constantly gaming and smoking pot all day to the detriment of his connections around him.

Its hard to get the appeal on the page but the way Cooper writes his way through this strikes a careful balance. Most of the people involved are not what you would call terrible but without a doubt compromised in some way, Jim himself being a self-obsessed wreck and those around him similarly wounded by some kind of emotional or bodily pain. He manages to toe the line with someone who is bad but fleshes them out in a way that isn't sympathetic but is comprehensive. In a certain weird way I am reminded of Henry James in how he gets into the heads of his characters but maintains this odd feeling of alienation as you read. This isn't even getting into the third part which is fantastical in a strict sense and I can not do justice at the moment. Finishing this I'm glad I am certain now that Cooper is not a one trick pony dealing only in the most abject misery, but also is masterful in how he can show the misery in a very mundane life, with mundane people.