Lethal crustacean

You’re a world-class fencer, a Dungeons & Dragons aficionado, and a flamenco guitarist. You distance yourself, becoming an observer of your own life. Your “hybrid” memoir is written in the second person (“you” instead of “I,” you explain to those who skipped eighth-grade English); it demands your readers’ full complicity. You call it The Arsenic Lobster, because you’re Sacramento State professor Peter Grandbois and it’s your story of life as an outsider. No, it’s not that you don’t belong in a suburb; it’s that you don’t feel like you belong in a suburb. You nod at the B-52s (the title’s a play on “Rock Lobster”; the themes match) and go David Foster Wallace with the footnotes (less in number, but more relevant) in one section. You write a slim but substantial book. You don’t know jack about fencing at first, but you learn that, like sports and rock ’n’ roll, what counts is the killer instinct.