The Frog King by Adam Davies is the tale of Harry Driscoll, an underachieving publishing assistant and wannabe writer. Harry’s misadventures in life and love are told in a winding and self-deprecating first person musing, filled with random notes and hypothetical conversations and asides to the audience. Lauded for its humor, the novel is indeed hilarious. But it is also exceedingly depressing.

You cannot help but describe the entire book as Harry rather than Davies’ because as you read, you become so attached to Harry, that even in his crueler moments with Evie, you are sympathetic. You understand his motives and they become yours as well.

Harry’s problem is that he cannot manage to tell Evie, his girlfriend, that he loves her. He does, in fact, love her, despite his infidelity. But he cannot bring himself to say that he loves her because to him, the whole conception of love flawed and riddled with cliches (a pet peeve of Driscoll’s). From the outset, you know he will fail, indeed must fail, in every thing he does, because the success he dreams about (with Evie, at work, in life) goes against his very beliefs. He wants to be successful at work, but purposefully sabotages himself because to succeed is to sell out. When Evie leaves him, she immediately begins to excel. As things go well for Evie, Harry eventually finds he can accept success, because he loves Evie, and Evie is now successful.

Of course The Frog King is not the first piece of literature to deal with the struggle between the pressure to succeed and the disgust for success. And though it’s been likened to Bright Lights, Big City perhaps a novel closer to it would be George Orwell’s Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Both feature poor, down-on their-luck would be writers. Both are disgusted with success, but strangely compelled to it. The cycle of poverty, failure and inability to love are played out. Orwell’s protagonist believed, “Serve the money–god or do without women-those are the only alternatives and both were equally impossible.”

Can love provide the fuel to launch a man out of his self-destructive life and into one happy and accepting of society and those around him? Literature like The Frog King and Keep the Aspidistra Flying says yes, it can and will. But popular wisdom suggests that you must be able to love yourself before you can love another. Davies seems to suggest that love has a transitive property. To love another, you will begin to love yourself, and society, and accept your role in it. Because love creates something to value. Even if you do not care for yourself, you have the motivation to do what society demands you must, and because this makes your partner happy, it makes it worth doing. And through this, your “better half” becomes a part of you that has worth. And you can believe you have worth yourself.

But can a relationship survive this process? Orwell’s says yes, it’s possible, and Comstock and Rosemary get married, presumably living happily every after. Here is where The Frog King differs. Harry’s relationship with Evie cannot withstand the pressure transforming Harry would require. Leaving Harry makes Evie more valuable in his eye, more worthy of love. But yet love, requited or not, is transformative.

The Frog King is an excellent story about love and loss, as well as the conflict between the individual and the society around him. For such a young author, Davies’ handles the subject matter with a sardonic wit and real style. Though there are quite a few novels, which are of a similar vein, such as Orwell’s Keep the Aspidistra flying, The Frog King, is a worthy addition to a sub-genre with such esteemed peers. Davies’ literary style is nothing out of the norm these days, but it’s straight forward and enjoyable. Davies’ use of vocabulary, like Harry’s, is excellent. And he uses it to create excellent descriptions, while maintaining realistic dialogue. In the future, we can expect to see good things from Davies, as long as he can expand his humor and writing style into new territory.