Jasper's difficult relationship with his father is the central subject of the book, and he leads a confused childhood due to Martin's constant bizarre lessons and diatribes.
His central conflict is a fear of turning into his father, and he often works to distance himself from Martin, though their bond is strangely loving in its own way.
As a child, he spent four years and four months in a coma; upon waking up, the resulting unfamiliarity with the world led to his later misanthropy.
He grew up as a natural athlete who loved sports with a religious fervor, hating all cheaters.
When Terry is injured and can no longer take part in any sport, he turns to a life of crime, going from juvenile delinquency to a vigilante crusade against every cheating athlete in Australia.
She leaves to travel the world, returning for her father when he is blinded in an explosion caused by Terry but eventually reappears, marrying Martin when they are both middle-aged.
Her attempts to point out Martin's flaws lead to his psychological breakdown, but she becomes a voice of sanity who stays on to help the Dean family.
Terry's father is an alcoholic who took his wife to a small town in New South Wales when he found work building a prison.
A Fraction of the Whole uses a multi-perspective narrative, often going back in time to show Martin's perspective on events before returning to Jasper's story in the present.
The framing narrative of the novel is written from the perspective of Jasper, writing secretly from the prison cell he is incarcerated in for an initially undisclosed crime.
He has dealt with many problems in his life, from Terry's criminal behavior, to Martin's own depression, to his four-year coma, to his mother poisoning him while she went mad from fear of her terminal cancer.
He finds her extremely attractive and assumes that his affair with her will be a one-night stand, but in fact it becomes the exact opposite.
During her pregnancy, Astrid becomes crazy, repeatedly painting a violent and horrific face and trying to converse with God.
She becomes angry when God does not respond, so Martin starts pretending to be him, answering her questions while hiding in the bathroom.
Jasper, in high school, meets the Towering Inferno (real name unknown) and starts a physical affair with her.
Finally, with the assistance of Anouk ( they begin to sleep with each other), Martin finds his purpose in life: to tell his ideas.
He proposes the idea to Anouk, who helps get it approved by the most wealthy man in Australia and his son, both of whom are in charge of the nation's network of tabloids and paparazzi artists.
Being beloved so much despite his foul speech, he is elected by a landslide so he continues his weird proposals make true in the country.
He has not been killed in the fire, but instead has just run away and employed Eddie to give money to the Deans and take photographs.
Just when Australia comes in sight, Martin dies smiling, and his dead body is thrown overboard, just as he had requested.
He sets off to Europe in search of his mother's past, and bought a plane ticket to Czech Republic, with financial assistance from Anouk who has become the richest woman in Australia because her husband and her father-in-law had died in a jet crash.
A review by Kyle Smith in The Wall Street Journal called A Fraction of the Whole "a riotously funny first novel by Australian Steve Toltz that is harder to ignore than a crate of puppies, twice as playful and just about as messy.
"[2] The Courier Mail's Lon Bram said that "every sentence is a quotable aphorism clothed in light-hearted observations about human behaviour", and called it "a 700-page modern classic.
"[4] The New York Times review by John Freeman was more negative, saying that while "there are a few nice moments", the novel "tries to create friction between Martin’s and Jasper’s different renditions of events, but this fails because they sound the same.