January Fifteenth by Rachel Swirsky

Publsihed by ‎ Tor.com on June 14, 2022

January 15 is Universal Basic Income Day, the holiday when everyone collects their money. UBI was born in “an extraordinary act of political will” after the world reached the brink of nuclear war. People were so happy to be alive, Janelle explains, that they decided to save the world, settling on UBI as the solution. Maybe the concept is Rachel Swirsky’s reaction to pandemic payments made to people who didn’t need them. The book’s premise doesn’t necessarily make sense (the link between nuclear annihilation and a universal income is less than clear), but it provides the foundation for the story that follows.

Janelle supported the idea of making things better, but now realizes that “making things better doesn’t always work.” Almost as soon as UBI was enacted, the wealthy began looking for ways to take it away from those who need it the most, particularly if they have dark skin (like Janelle) or are naturalized citizens. Inevitably, some of those who could have used the money productively spend it on drugs or cults. Janelle’s sister believes reparations would be more just than UBI. One of Swirksy’s points seems to be that society can help people but can’t force people to help themselves.

Unfortunately, Swirsky seems to have been more interested in making points than in telling a cohesive story. January Fifteenth follows four sets of characters who are linked only by the fact that their stories unfold on UBI Day.

Janelle and Nevaeh are sisters conducting interviews for aggregators, gathering reactions to UBI Day. They ask school kids how their parents will spend their money. They enter banks and talk to people who are depositing their checks. They talk to shoppers in malls. Some people blame UBI for breeding laziness and encouraging people not to get jobs, but nobody seems to be refusing the money. Apart from offering transcripts of other people’s reactions to UBI, the chapters that follow Janelle and Nevaeh focus on their sibling relationship, how they were raised, and how Janelle is raising Neveah now that their parents are dead.

Hannah is having issues with her violent ex-wife. They have two sons to whom ex-wife Abigail gave birth, but Hannah is keeping them in hiding with the help of an older woman who has military training and doesn’t take Abigail’s crap.

Sarah is a pregnant fifteen-year-old who needs to see mainstream Mormon social workers. Sarah is married to a non-mainstream husband whose other wives are regarded as Sarah’s sister-wives. Sarah doesn’t appreciate being judged by the mainstreams.

Olivia is partying with other students from elite colleges on UBI Day. Rich people are competing to waste their UBI money creatively, but Olivia hasn’t entered the contest. She’s tripping on something similar to Ecstasy while two other party goers, a male and a female, argue about whether Olivia consented to the sex she had with the male.

The permutations of gender play a strong background role in the novel. Nevaeh changed her birth-assigned gender. Janelle is uncomfortable interviewing children because some parents become upset when she asks kids about their preferred gender pronouns. (To Janelle, the question is only polite.) Janelle and Nevaeh argue about teen slang for gender, which has broadened considerably in this near future. Janelle prefers traditional terms like trans, cis, and nonbinary, but traditional is the last thing that language ever wants to be.

Class is another social issue that receives prominent attention. Wealthy people euphemistically refer to the poor as “the mobile class.” Janelle has heard rumors that Native women have been told they must be sterilized to collect their UBI.

The story’s emphasis on various social issues — rape and domestic violence, race and class and gender, oppression in its many forms, bulimia, the impact of religious cults on teenage girls, social welfare — deprives the novel of focus. The story is scattered through the four sets of characters who seemingly exist only to allow Swirksy to check as many social-issue boxes as she could, I’m all in favor of science fiction that asks how social issues might be addressed in the future, but none of the issues here benefit from the deep dive that sf at its best provides.

Swirsky’s larger theme seems to be that attempts to solve problems will inevitably create new problems. Government services were cut to pay for UBI, with devastating impacts for people who lost in-home care and students who no longer receive free lunches. Nor does UBI solve other problems, including collapsing mines in Appalachia and the influx of climate refugees. The novella-length book is a long walk to illustrate the obvious conclusion that no solution to any social problem will be perfect. While characters offer interesting and diverse opinions that might spark book club discussions, the novella as a whole lacks resolution and never coheres into a work that is larger than its parts.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Rock of Ages by Timothy Hallinan

Published by ‎ Soho Crime on June 14, 2022

Irwin Dressler is a big deal crime boss, but he’s getting old and younger lions are always looking for a chance to displace the leader. Dressler financed a tour of aging rock bands, a “mega tour of minor talent.” Four “old guys” drawn from the ranks of criminals who infiltrated the music world long ago (“killers, extortionists, leg-breakers, kidnappers, armed robbers, and threat specialists”) are enjoying the fun of touring with the bands, but Dressler thinks they are also skimming profits, if not outright stealing bags of money. He asks Junior Bender to investigate. Junior isn’t in a position to say no to Dressler. Nobody says no to Dressler.

Fans of the series will know that Bender is a divorced burglar who has been trying to keep the truth of his occupation from his teenage daughter. Keeping information from teenage girls is a lost cause, as Bender discovers when he brings Rina to the concert whose promoters he is investigating.

Rock of Ages isn’t a typical Junior Bender novel. Bender commits no burglaries, but he uses his criminal skills in a variety of ways. Early in the novel, a heavy backdrop falls, putting an end to an annoying long drum solo — and the drummer. Bender notes that the ropes holding the backdrop in place had been cut and suspects that the drummer was not the intended victim. For that reason, Rock of Ages has some elements of a whodunit, with Bender playing the role of a detective. Bender spends much of the novel sneaking around (a task that makes use of his burglary skills) to figure out what’s likely to happen to the tour profits and who orchestrated the backdrop’s fall.

Timothy Hallinan establishes a convincing atmosphere with the sights, sounds, and smells of an older theater. This is a relatively nonviolent crime novel, with just enough gunplay and torture to remind the reader that it is a crime novel, but not so much that violence becomes the point of the story. Bender’s uncertainty about the degree to which he should reveal his life to his daughter exemplifies the characterization that is one of Hallinan’s strengths. Populating novels with colorful background characters is another. The aging rock musicians display the different traits that should be expected of rock musicians (vanity, jealousy, addiction). The best collateral character is an aging groupie who instantly bonds with Rina.

Hallinan describes a man as being in “his carnivorous middle-fifties and as thin as an abandoned hope.” Hallinan’s ability to drop a few incredible sentences into his books is one of the reasons I look forward to his novels. While Rock of Ages is not my favorite Junior Bender novel — the plot is secondary to the amusing characters — I appreciated the novel for other reasons, including its memorable images of aging rock bands playing in small venues at the end of their careers.

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The Midcoast by Adam White

Published by Hogarth on June 7, 2022

The Midcoast is a crime novel in the sense that crime provides the drama that holds the plot together. It would be more accurate to say that crime is the backdrop for a character-driven novel. The Midcoast follows family members who come to realize that the family’s prosperity has its origin in burglary. The family leader’s transition from lobsterman to criminal seems natural and inevitable, given his single-minded fixation on keeping a promise to give his wife whatever she wants.

Andrew, the novel’s narrator, grew up in Damariscotta, a town on the midcoast of Maine.  When Andrew was 15, Andrew’s father (an orthopedic surgeon), reaching for a cure for Andrew’s lazy approach to life, arranged for Andrew to take a job as a dockhand at the Thatch Lobster Pound. Ed Thatch was slightly older than Andrew. They had little in common, given Andrew’s plan to play lacrosse and get an education while Ed intends to follow his father’s path as a lobsterman. Ed and Andrew are both impressed by a girl from New Hampshire named Steph, who doesn’t seem impressed by either of them. Later in life, when Andrew moves back to Damariscotta, he learns that Steph has married Ed, a marriage Andrew’s negligence might have inadvertently furthered.

Andrew narrates the Thatch family’s story based on equal parts of research and speculation. Ed begins his criminal career by making an impulsive decision to burglarize a small yacht, not realizing that the victim will one day be his friend. He steals an expensive ring that will be transformed into his wife’s engagement ring. Ed then builds a life by casing vacation houses from his lobster boat and burglarizing them when they appear to be empty. He uses the proceeds to buy land and make other investments that turn him into Damariscotta’s wealthiest resident. He later uses his new fleet of souped-up lobster boats to smuggle marijuana from Canada.

Ed and Steph have two kids, EJ and Allie. EJ comes to suspect the true nature of his father’s work before he begins a career in law enforcement — a career that advances the family business. Steph is clueless about Ed’s criminality, or at least she prefers to be. Steph is ambitious. She becomes town manager, pursuing the belief that Damariscotta can become a prosperous tourist destination. The town does not share her ambitions. Its people prefer anonymity to prosperity. They like Damariscotta the way it is, the way it has always been. Steph ignores them and plugs away at her ambitions, too busy to wonder how Ed is earning so much money. When EJ forces her to ask those questions, the questions “followed her everywhere, exhausted her, made her disappointed in everything she saw.”

Allie is the most innocent member of the family and one of the most carefully developed characters. Ed frets about where Allie can get the best education while pursuing her interest in lacrosse — an interest that brings Andrew back into Ed’s life. Ed also befriends a wealthy man whose daughter is a lacrosse player and who supports Allie’s decision to attend Amherst. The reader learns about Allie’s feeling of guilt about Amherst tuition and her sense that she doesn’t belong — which, if “belonging” means being the child of rich parents who themselves went to a college like Amherst, is true.

It might be easy to sympathize with Ed, an uncomplicated man who followed a path that allowed him to keep a promise to his wife without giving it much thought. With the same lack of planning, he will resolve to abandon crime, again because he wants to make Steph happy, but also because he has a dim realization that crime makes communities unsafe for Allie. Ed is steady but he isn’t blessed with the ability to appreciate potential consequences.

Adam White draws detailed pictures of Maine communities that lack charm but resist modernization. He explores the contrast between upper and lower classes in the Northeast without engaging in a political discussion. Characters from all walks of life populate the novel’s background, sometimes interacting because of shared interests (lacrosse, for example), usually minding their own business.

Although crime drives Ed’s success until it doesn’t, The Midcoast is not built on the typical plot of a crime novel. Apart from being Ed’s part-time occupation, crime is only important to the extent that it has an impact on the characters. Crime drives the novel’s violent climax, but the violence is understated. It does not exist to titillate or shock, but to motivate the next unwritten chapter in the lives of the Thatch family.

That act of violence is previewed early in the novel, prompting Andrew’s exploration of the Thatch family. The violence is given a focused explanation by the novel’s end. At that point, Andrew is teaching writing. Andrew tells his students that writers need to find a way to connect readers with their story. The characters in The Midcoast are sufficiently varied that I suspect most readers will connect with one of them. More ambitious readers might identify with Steph; younger readers with Allie. Some people might connect to the relationship between Ed and Steph, two people who seem horribly mismatched but who, by the novel’s end, would not know how to live without each other. Maybe readers will connect with Maine or with crime. I can envision many connections that would make readers appreciate the time they give to The Midcoast.

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The Gatekeeper by James Byrne

Published by Minotaur Books on June 7, 2022

Desmond Aloysius Limerick is my new favorite action hero. While most fictional tough guys take themselves much too seriously, demonstrating their toughness in a transparent effort to mask insecurity about their masculinity, Limerick doesn’t take himself seriously at all. He’s funny, self-effacing, completely secure, and — only when he needs to be — tough.

Limerick’s background is a mystery. He is recognized and respected by highly ranked American military officers, but he isn’t currently in the military. He apparently hails from England, although he spent time in Ireland and Scotland before branching out to the rest of Europe. He speaks Spanish and a version of English that Americans don’t easily understand. (Limerick’s complicated explanation of the phrase “He’ll have a right bull” inspires a cop to say “This is America. Speak English.”) He plays bass in a bar band. Some people call him chef, which might be French for chief, although he claims to have gained the nickname by working in many kitchens.

At this point in his life, when he isn’t playing music, Des is a gatekeeper. He opens doors, guards them, keeps them open, controls who and what passes through, closes them when the time comes. Six months ago, he was opening doors in Algeria for people with guns. Des knows his way around a gun but he doesn’t seem to need one.

When the main story starts, Des is in Los Angeles, playing in a hotel bar. On his way to his room, he flirts with Petra Alexandris, amusing Petra but not her bodyguards. He looks out the window of his room and sees a sniper, then sees thugs entering the hotel. Since Petra has bodyguards, he concludes that the thugs might be coming for her. He wanders down to her floor and nonchalantly but violently saves her from being kidnapped. They spend much of the novel together, sometimes in bed. Des has a good life.

Petra is counsel for her father’s corporation, a massive company that finances and expedites contracts for the world’s militaries. The kidnap attempt ties into a plot that involves white supremacists who are lured to central California with the promise of carving out a 51st state, just for them. The actual scheme is more ambitious and surprisingly clever. To throw a spanner in the works, Des needs to take on the supremacists, defend a nuclear plant, and cause havoc on a not-quite-closed military base. Des takes some beatings in the process, but never loses his smile. Trying to control him by locking him in a cell turns out to be futile because, after all, he’s the Gatekeeper.

The novel gets its charm from Des, one of the wittiest action heroes I’ve encountered. I laughed out loud more than a dozen times at the novel’s sly and surprising humor, often appearing in asides and non sequiturs. The reader has little time to fret about plausibility in an action-filled, fast-moving story. The Gatekeeper is a refreshing change from action novels featuring self-centered tough guys whose personality is based solely on being tough. Des’ personality is based on being kind, smart, funny, disarming, and good with doors. His toughness is a quality he feels no need to brag about. Des is an unconventional protagonist I look forward to meeting again ... and again ... and again.

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The Seaplane on Final Approach by Rebecca Rukeyser

Published by ‎ Doubleday on June 7, 2022

Mira is attracted to sleaze. In fact, she’s obsessed with sleaze. Her very proper parents send her to Alaska for the summer when she’s 17. They hope Mira’s aunt will teach their wayward daughter the value of hard work. Mira is not a delinquent but she’s a poor student who lacks ambition. Her hidden ambition is to master the concept of sleaze, which seems to Mira to have “something to do with excess.” The job allows her to meet her stepcousin Ed, whose missing tooth inspires her sleazy masturbatory fantasies. She only sees Ed during a four-day period, but that’s enough to trigger fantasies of an erotic life together.

Mira returns to Alaska when she’s 18, having flunked out of high school. She takes a job as a baker at Lavender Island Wilderness Lodge. Only a handful of characters live at the resort. Stu and Maureen own the place. Polly and Erin are recent high school graduates who guide guests on their wilderness adventures. A taciturn chef who grumbles about insufficient supplies rounds out the staff.

Maureen likes to tell guests about the virtues of living in God’s country. Stu, who is having an affair with Erin after starting one with Polly, is less interested in virtuous living. Polly is bummed because she came to Alaska with the expectation that the affair would continue. Maureen is bummed, although she usually tries not to show it, because she knows what Stu is doing. The chef has a problem with anger and alcohol. Mira repeats the phrase “soft sweater” over and over when she’s having a panic attack. Each character disintegrates a bit each day as the long summer moves toward darkness until, at the novel’s end, the pace of the disintegration escalates.

Mira spends her days baking, cleaning, dumping trash into the ocean (an odd choice for an eco-lodge), and serving guests. When she’s not working, she’s usually masturbating to fantasies of Ed, fantasies that she revises while imagining them, improving the story as it leads to her climax. Oddly, Mira is probably the most emotionally healthy of the resort’s staff members. Guests, watching the staff interact, sometimes wonder whether they’ve chosen a poor vacation destination.

The reader learns that Mira is now an adult. She is recounting this story from her past, filling in details from the present — Erin’s marriage, Polly’s adoption of a dog after visiting Thailand — that she seems to have gleaned from Facebook. When details are scarce, she uses her imagination to fill the gaps.

The sleaze theme doesn’t work very well, in part because Mira never quite grasps the meaning of sleaze. She learns that sleaze cannot be hunted because it only finds the wholesome. Maybe that means that only the wholesome recognize sleaze as sleazy. I'm not sure what, if anything, the reader should take from Mira's musings about sleaze, apart from the groundwork they lay for Mira's frantic masturbation.

Despite not quite following Mira’s thoughts about sleaze, I admire Rebecca Rukeyser’s creativity. Later in Mira’s life, an addict will compare morphine to a high school snow day, when a teen can anticipate sleeping late before savoring porn during a leisurely afternoon. That's a clever comparison. The contrast between Mira’s genuine and Maureen’s feigned sunniness is amusing, as are the triggers for Mira’s fantasies (thinking about something that Ed might have touched once or looking up his name in the phone book are sufficiently stimulating to get her off). The novel’s increasing darkness is offset by Mira’s steadiness, her refusal to succumb to the fear of bears or jellyfish or unrequired desire. Readers who appreciate the unexpected will find much to appreciate in The Seaplane on Final Approach.

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