That was what they saw. The grown-up world. Violence, fat and an empty fridge. A bottle of gin but no meat. He's a middle-aged man, with no job.
Nothing works out.
He looks back over his life from the front step of the house. Writing was something he had toyed with since college. If they had read the bloody thing and said mean things about it, I might have given up right there. His writing is nimblest in the Barrytown trilogy, where the narrator rarely intrudes for commentary or description.