Decline and Fall of a Tough Guy

Most writers of fiction find it impossible to make a respectable living entirely from their book sales. For many years now, teaching college has been their preferred way of staying afloat. As a result, the campus novel, from Herzog to Blue Angel, in this time of mandatory accreditation, has developed one of the more important themes of the age: namely, the ever-widening gap between existence in the academy and real life. Nino Ricci’s new novel, Sleep, explores a phenomenon decisively banned from the campus: male violence.

David Pace (pronounced “Pah-cheh”—like Ricci, he is of Italian descent) is a historian in a city very like Toronto, teaching at a university very like York. Pace is an expert in Roman antiquity and the author of one well-regarded book, Masculine History. Sadly, he has been unable to follow up his early publishing success with succeeding volumes, possibly because he had cribbed the idea from his best friend Greg, when...