Alby is rude, crude, violent and sex-obsessed; a very bad lad. He lives in a trashy American landscape of bars and diners, gobbling fast food and quaffing beer and prescription drugs. Sumell tells Alby's story, in part autobiographical, in separate bite-sized chapter chunks. We learn Alby is consumed with grief at the loss of his mother. He cares for his dogs, nurses an ailing bird, rescues a grasshopper and, after failing to drown his ailing father, gets on okay with him. Making Nice is outrageous and blackly funny; it's not for the faint-hearted. Sometimes it's like being trapped beside a volatile hooligan on a bus. Sumell's achievement is we inhabit Alby's head and share his pain, his anger and, eventually, moments of peace such as when his boat drifts at sea and he sees "a green shape like a giant firefly ... its wake lit up and glowing".
