In this larky autofiction, the ups and downs of creative life are cartoonishly dramatised as the writer becomes an action hero In this larky autofiction, the ups and downs of creative life are cartoonishly dramatised as the writer becomes an action hero R ob Doyle’s previous novel, Threshold , took the form of a blackly comic travelogue narrated by an Irish writer named Rob. In one episode before Rob becomes an author, we see him as a sexually pent-up teacher abroad, masturbating over an essay