A Joshua Ferris plot line often features a seemingly dull concern. An office chair goes missing. A lawyer chronically sleepwalks. And in Ferris' riotous new novel, "To Rise Again at a Decent Hour," a dentist gets his online identity stolen.

Paul O'Rourke — workaholic, obsessive Red Sox fan, devout skeptic — begins with a series of rants, riffing on everything from the questionable value of hand lotion to the banalities of religion. "To me," Paul says, "a church is simply a place to be bored in."

The riffs unravel in the tradition of the charming crank (Woody Allen, Seinfeld, etc.) but turn manic when someone creates a website for Paul's practice and social media profiles in Paul's name.

The second half of the book reads like a mystery. Paul consults a bookseller friend to dig up information about the Cantiveticles, portions of which appear on Paul's website and Twitter account. The ancient text derives from the little-known Ulms, who profess not belief but doubt, and from whom Paul supposedly descends.

Amid e-mail exchanges with his identity thief, consultations with his lawyer and banter with his ultra-Catholic hygienist, Mrs. Convoy, Paul is sideswiped with memories of his father's suicide, failed romances (the most recent being with his secretary Connie) and a secret desire to play the banjo on the subway.

Although the last chunk of the book loses some of the early verbal pizazz and humorous bite, Paul's journey proves to be an unexpectedly poignant meditation on pain, death and belonging.

Joshua Ferris

JOSH COOK