The great man theory A novel

Paul, the snippy academic protagonist of Wayne's alternately crushing and tedious latest (after Apartment), is having a rough go of it. He's toiling as an adjunct, has to move in with his mom in the Bronx, is being pushed away by his tween daughter, and is stalled on writing his book-length treatise, The Luddite Manifesto. Reduced to the indignity of having to buy a smartphone and work as a rideshare driver, he finds purpose after picking up Lauren, the producer of cable TV show Mackey Live (think: The O'Reilly Factor). He hits it off with her after claiming to be a conservative professor disgusted by lefty academia, and before long they're dating. As Paul manipulates Lauren to try to get himself booked on Mackey's show and sabotage it for the good of the country, his life further disintegrates. Wayne's greatest feat is also something of an Achilles heel: he convincingly inhabits Paul, but Paul can be bloviating and vapid. The fact that swaths of his internal monologues are skippable may cause some readers to tune out. This would be a shame, because when Paul bottoms out, his hurt hits as deep and palpable, and, indeed, his "nothing to lose" plan feels fittingly desperate. There's not a dull sentence here, though it's too bad there aren't fewer of them before the sting in the tail arrives. (July)

An essay-writing Brooklyn academic who feels he has hit bottom discovers just how much further he can fall. This novel attempts an exquisite balancing act between the farcical and the devastatingly sad and between the political polarities its protagonist sets out to address. The present moment is most certainly out of joint for Paul, who is in the midst of writing his first book in perhaps his last gasp toward relevance. He has titled it The Luddite Manifesto, and it attempts to connect the contemporary culture's addiction to screens with the election of a president whom he finds abhorrent. The novelist plainly has sympathy for Paul, his positions, and his plight, yet he also presents him as a sad sack--self-important, oppressively judgmental, a divorced dad now living with his own mother, demoted by his college English department from lecturer (with benefits) to adjunct. Somehow he must navigate his way through the modern world, supplementing his income by driving for a ride-share, which requires him to get one of those smartphones he despises. Soon he finds himself sharing his opinions on a political website where he becomes desperate for "likes." Having established a character who is both sympathetic and ridiculous, the novel must find something for him to do; he maneuvers through his daughter's decreasingly enthusiastic sleepovers, a #MeToo accusation from one of his few prized students, and a chance encounter with the producer of a right-wing TV commentary show to which his mother is addicted. Paul makes a last grandiose attempt to establish himself as a "great man," and it's a doozy. The novel generates plenty of dark humor from its serious issues and predicaments. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.