I wish I could say that I always follow common sense. At one moment, meeting a woman who presents herself as a guru, “Common sense tells me to leave curiosity drives me forward.” That’s the writer coming out. Strauss meets people whose new-age and pseudo-religious or -mystical bullshit is vile. The chase is about women, yes, but it’s also about finding a way to be. Score one for free will or something like it. Strauss, seeking answers, gets what appears to be an fMRI, hoping that his brain makes hedonic and novelty-seeking, only to be told that he chooses relationships or the chase. The treatment does not work, at least at first. In the first section, we learn that there is such a thing as “a CSAT,” that is, “a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist.” The therapists seem at least as mad as the patients, which seems to be a recurring theme in life (you know what they say about psych majors…). Get past the first third and pay special attention to the rest, where Strauss’s sharp, comedic / absurdist observations strike. Unfortunately, The Truth buries the lede: the weakest, most tedious section by far is the beginning, when Strauss goes to therapy for “sex addiction” (which may not exist, at least for reasonable definitions of “exist”).* Don’t give up. The Truth is poorly named but it’s also amazing and you should read it, preferably in the biblical, imitation-leather edition.
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