In this, his second book, David Layton tells the story of a man with an egomaniacal, eccentric, and adulterous artist for a father. It may sound like a sequel to his autobiography, Motion Sickness, in which he wrote about growing up as poet Irving Layton’s son, but this one’s a novel. The Bird Factory still involves the dynamics of family – in fact, it goes straight to the seed of the matter – but as in his first book, where the younger Layton’s intention was to eschew a celebrity tell-all for a deeply subjective experience of childhood, The Bird Factory is deeply imbedded in the psyche of its narrator.

When his wife Julia’s biological alarm clock starts blaring, Luke Gray does what is typical of him – he reluctantly goes along with whatever is expected. A hitch in the plan arises, however, when the two discover that they are unable to make babies. Undeterred, Julia drags them to a fertility clinic, where Luke learns he has “lazy sperm.” The diagnosis is not surprising, considering Luke’s lethargy for his other creative endeavour, running the mobile-bird company referred to in the book’s title.

Telling the story from Luke’s point of view, Layton creates a lucid portrait of a man who has lost his ability to think lucidly. Once Luke discovers he is essentially flawed, everything in his life becomes a reflection of this fact. Luke gets discouraged when one of his employees whom he considers dumb and naive builds his own home, courts a single mother, and starts his own family with ease; he feels inferior to his father who – in his golden years – successfully (though accidentally) impregnated a student; and he’s disappointed by the pathetically small amount of semen he produces when he has to masturbate at the clinic. Everything is spun through Luke’s self-disgusted eyes.

The tightly woven plot is hindered, however, by a lack of dramatic irony, which would have been useful for depicting a delusional character such as Luke. Throughout most of the book, Luke is a complete jerk, venting his frustration all over the place – even at other people’s kids, who represent his lack. As a reader, it’s hard to tell when to forgive him because of what he’s going through and when to hate him. Layton finally drops some clues near the end, but more such hints throughout the story would have bolstered an otherwise highly realized psychology.