Vancouver writer Dennis E. Bolen’s seventh work of fiction, a collection of linked stories, shows a writer at the top of his game. The stories are so closely linked they read like a novel, making it hard not to devour the book at one sitting. It’s also hard not to go back and savour each story a second time.

Bolen’s subject is men of the Baby Boom generation, especially those who have floundered financially and romantically. The guys in these stories often spend their time getting as hammered as possible – one group devotes all its material resources to the purchase of alcohol. They have mundane jobs such as driving taxis. They give dinner parties where people have no fun. They smoke, even when doing so makes them social pariahs. Sex is a diversion from the boredom of their daily lives, but one that is sometimes too much of an effort even to bother with.

And they are intelligent. In “Arch Sots and Tosspots” (great title), Paul offers to help with a dinner party after having pretty much demolished a previous soirée. His pal refuses the offer, saying, “You were drunk as Dean Martin and mean as Josef Stalin.” As we’ve been privy to the earlier disaster, we can’t help but concur. But Paul’s friends never disown him. They are well aware of his irresponsible and self-destructive behaviour, and they still love him.

Indeed, friendship is an enduring feature in the lives of Bolen’s characters; it’s the one thing that gives their lives meaning. Wit is the cement that binds these men together. They can be hysterically funny while at the same time highlighting their uselessness. How can you not like guys who make fun of their generation’s invention of drugs to cure erectile dysfunction and descent into pop cultural ephemera, all the while failing miserably to keep their own families and lives together?

Anticipated Results dances with clever language that both mocks and questions a generation’s legacy. Boomers will see themselves in this cast of characters, and other generations will get an idea of how the Boomers’ idealism went sideways.