Conveyed as a bleak first-person narrative with darkly humorous overtones, Frankenstein reveals how real-life experience shaped his hard-bitten survivalist view of life. His was a world of fear and isolation punctuated by bullying thugs, the stifling atmosphere of the at the Lutheran school on the South-side of Chicago, racial segregation, unapproachable girls, and a home life consisting of an emotionally distant and unsupportive mother and an violent, alcoholic cop father who was not above giving his son a good thrashing now and again while preaching Christian family values. It is a searing portrait of an unbearably painful upbringing.