As they appear in Andrew Kaufman’s debut novel, Toronto’s superheroes are a rather sad-sack bunch. There’s The Couch Surfer, with the mysterious power to survive on nothing but handfuls of breakfast cereal and slices of dry bread. Or The Chip, born with a massive chip on her shoulder, the weight of which has led her to develop superhuman strength (entirely expended, of course, in supporting the chip).

Tom, the novel’s protagonist, is not a superhero, although he’s in love with one: The Perfectionist (she can organize anything in the blink of an eye). The Perfectionist is perfect for him, at least until her jealous ex-boyfriend, Hypno, hypnotizes her to think that Tom has disappeared. Six months later, convinced that Tom has abandoned her, The Perfectionist boards a plane to Vancouver to start a new life, completely unaware that her beloved is at her side, having booked the seat next to her on the flight. Now, Tom has one last chance to make himself visible to the Perfectionist before the plane lands.

Kaufman’s gently ironic pop culture riffing marks him as a McSweeney’s alumnus (he’s a contributor to the web site). His narrative is wonderfully digressive, constantly breaking away from the main story to regale us with amusing anecdotes about the various heroes (a couple of the novel’s chapters consist entirely of witty biographical sketches of Toronto’s local not-so-super folk). If I may don the costume of The Egghead for a moment, the novel’s ironic superhero trope is reminiscent of the medieval genre of the Character, where a procession of immediately familiar personality types marches across the stage, and the audience members gain pleasure (and insight) in matching the different types with people they know.

At times, the comic-book aesthetic feels a bit limiting – Kaufman might have taken a few more pages to fill out his central characters or to work a bit more subtlety into the plot. But All My Friends Are Superheroes is a breeze to read, as quick of wit and light on its feet as Spider-Man.