Some of the material in “The Copywriter” is banal. “News used to be delivered to one’s door,” D__ grouses. “Nowadays it simply penetrates the face.” Some of it is goofy. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of nope, I will fear no yeah,” he riffs. Some descriptions refresh or reimagine D__’s surroundings: studying fellow-beachgoers on Labor Day, he pinpoints when a child’s tantrum has attained a “pitch of exaltedness” beyond the reach even of sherbet. Constellations in the night sky are a “toss of fiery points” that drop “silent gossip” on stargazers. Here, he pastes in an e-mail from his great-uncle. Here, he reproduces a dialogue with his co-worker. Here, he transcribes Lucy’s dream. At one point, tongue firmly in cheek, he muses about whether it was profitable for him to spend a whole day noodling on a theory of writing as a “photosynthetic process” that “conceals its blossoming meat.” Looming over the novel is a question: can this existence—this openhearted, roguish, aimless scavenging—yield anything of value, or is it just a waste?