Closing the book on a "literary Gone Girl"

Ok I really wanted to like Lauren Groff's Fates and Furies - who wouldn't want to read a "literary version of Gone Girl?, as some have described it - even came back to it after setting it aside for a week in case it was just me, but to no avail, the book, despite some glimmering passages and some trenchant observations about the Gen X children as they move from privileged childhood to indulgent young-adulthood and on into, what? I got 150 pages in and haven't a clue; the main character (in the 1st part; I understand from some reviews and comments that the 2nd half is about his wife), Lotto, preciously short for Launcelot, leads a dissolute and uninteresting life through college and post-college years in NYC as an aspiring actor. Although we are often told how brilliant and charming he is, the evidence is lacking. Failing at acting, he has a sudden convergence and becomes a playwright and not just any but world-renowned. OK fiction is fiction and the author can go w/ her characters where she will, but there is nothing in these 150 pp that convince me that this character has the insight, drive, or creativity to become a great playwright (and btw it's rather astonishing that he writes his first play in 1 night of despair and his wife, Mathilde, gushes and says he's a genius and in fact he is - I guarantee that Groff knows that this is not the way one "becomes" a writer). All right, enough banging on this book that can certainly withstand my displeasure and doesn't really need my praise either. Who am I to say? Maybe I should hang in there and it will all come clear in Mathilde's episodes - though LG asks her readers to hang on for a long ride before the destination comes into sight. Maybe I'm just in the wrong generation [I am] or maybe I expected the book to be more literary and less Gone [I did] or maybe others feel the same way I do about this much-publicized and initially appealing novel.