Despite its publication by über-hip McSweeney’s Books, Stephen Dixon’s novel I. is not the product of a relatively new or young writer. Dixon has published more than 20 novels and over 400 stories since 1959. His meta-fictional and autobiographical prose has garnered a small but enthusiastic collection of fans. He’s the literary equivalent of Yo La Tengo.

This is not a bad thing if you are one of those fans. But standing outside the furor, I wonder what all the fuss is about.

First, a brief description of I. I. is the novel’s main character, a man who closely resembles Dixon. He is a father of two, married to a fellow writer afflicted with a wasting disease. Each of the book’s chapters, or linked short stories, describes a different aspect of I.’s life. Each one is pointedly mundane, focusing on I.’s obsessive attempts to do the right thing in everyday situations. In “Speed Bump,” for example, a friend tells I. he almost ran over her legs while swerving around a speed bump in a parking lot. I. spends the rest of the chapter trying to remember if this is correct and imagining different possible scenarios.

Dixon’s strength lies here. When he is focused on the mundane details of life, he can capture the nuance of something as banal as running errands, or thinking about running errands, and make this nuance feel precious. The problems occur when he abandons this commitment to detail.

I. uses a distinctive idiom, combining highly articulate language with childish slang (“How should I handle it when I get upset or disappointed at you over something? Not to yell, for certain. To convey in a calm and rational way what’s bugging me”). But so does everyone else in the novel. It’s disappointing to discover that Dixon (or I.) is incapable of relating personal idioms when he is so capable of relating the behaviour of these people.

And it’s hard to understand I.’s meta-fictional dithering about what actually happened, about how he should do the right thing, when there are no other articulate consciousnesses in the book. After all, isn’t the consideration of other people one of the primary reasons we try to do the right thing?

Fans of McSweeney’s will probably enjoy I. Dave Eggers, for all his self-absorbed brilliance, can also be self-absorbed to a fault, and an ability to withstand this will probably help you out here. Some chapters, such as “The Apology,” “The Accident,” and “The Switch,” are focussed enough to keep one’s interest.

But only a smattering of hipsters/English students/writers will really enjoy this book—everyone else will be put off by the self-aware worries of its author.

I don’t think this will upset Stephen Dixon much. When you’ve written over 400 stories and are still relatively unknown, you’re probably writing primarily for yourself and your dedicated core of fans. Just like Yo La Tengo.