If reading the novels of O'Brien is an inherently traumatic experience, it can also be enlightening. Tomcat ventures (mostly) out of the jungles of Vietnam and into the emotional minefield of romance for a difficult, powerful tale of the craziness love inspires. "Tomcat" is not about a battle of the sexes. It is a funny, but spiritually exhausting, story of one man coming to emotional maturity. While the story of the past accumulates, the present becomes sparse and the elements of the lead's life gradually fall apart. The question becomes whether the lead can overcome his obsession with his ex-wife and her brother, or if he is hopelessly trapped by a pattern of fate he cannot understand. The real power behind O'Brien's fiction resides in the way he turns plots inside out just when the reader thinks he understands. Only then do the emotional truths and motives become clear, and only then can the reconstruction of a life begin.