He tries to cure the titular thumbsucking with hot pepper on the offending digit. Above all, he tries to infect his boy with his own pathological competitiveness. The West's been won. Averages, a wise man told me once, are usually an excuse for something. Shoplifting, he explains another time, is driving up the price of milk.
Milk is where they recapture the lost profits.
But while Thumbsucker has a sense of humor and some compelling characters, there are some profound weaknesses here. Not only does the novel mostly cover well-trodden ground, but many of the author's attempts to take us into new territory feel unduly contrived. Obviously, Kirn isn't aiming for strict realism, but it's hard to take his narrative too seriously when it keeps veering deep into a Twilight Zone. His narrator has close encounters with celebrity actors, discovers that his boss has burned down the gas station to collect insurance money, and watches his middle-aged dentist change from an easygoing hippie into a patriotic National Guardsman. Often, the author's uncontrolled taste for the absurd takes the edge off his story.