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...