Alan Opts Out
A Novel
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
A BEST BOOK OF THE SUMMER: New York Times • Town & Country • Los Angeles Times • Goodreads • LitHub
FEATURED IN: People • A Cup of Joe • theSkimm • The Ezra Klein Show
** In development as a series with HBO **
“Reading this book reminded me how much fun a novel can be.” ―Caro Claire Burke, author of Yesteryear
In this timely and comedic take on ambition, consumerism, and the sticker price of privilege, an ad exec who bombs the biggest pitch of his career decides to forgo capitalism and live off the land of his suburban Connecticut home. Perfect for readers of Rufi Thorpe and Taffy Brodesser-Akner.
Alan Anderson is a powerful advertising executive who has built a successful life and thriving business by making people buy stuff they don’t actually need. He’s up for the biggest pitch of his career and the account everyone wants, US Dairy: cow’s milk sales are plummeting, and the C-Suite wants to see trendy oat milk kicked to the curb. But when an anarchist farmer tanks Alan’s presentation, Alan bombs the pitch but ends the day with an epiphany. No longer will he exploit the insecurities of others in the service of capitalism. Alan is opting out.
This development is anathema to his wife, Vivian. She’s just a few positive affirmations, a swimming pool, and an exacting series of social tests away from finally becoming part of the elite women’s club, the Queen Annes, in their adopted town of Greenwich, Connecticut. As if contending with a daughter who wants to write plays (!) and another who has an unnatural empathy with animals isn’t enough to manage, she can only watch as Alan moves into their backyard playhouse to live off the land and―worse―spend time with the family. But instead of shocking the neighbors, Alan’s commitment to a less-is-more lifestyle seems to be catching on. Could everyone want what Alan’s not selling?
Funny, sexy, intelligent, and poignant, Alan Opts Out is the most ambitious novel to date by celebrated author Courtney Maum, acclaimed for her stories that tackle big, chewy subjects of our post-modern America with wit and heart.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Class awakening and domestic upheaval meet wickedly hilarious humour in this biting suburban satire. After Connecticut ad exec Alan Anderson’s big dairy campaign pitch takes an unexpected and spectacularly wrong turn, he’s struck with a profound realization about his lucrative career. Horrified by the consumerist desires he’s dedicated his life to creating in others, Alan trades suburban opulence for a simpler existence—in his own backyard. Meanwhile, Alan’s wife, Vivian, has no interest in her husband’s newfound minimalism, becoming increasingly wrapped up in winning her affluent neighbours’ approval and gaining entry to the exclusive Queen Annes women’s club. Courtney Maum mines big laughs from the collision of Alan’s earnest rebellion with Vivian’s unquenchable desire for more. Amid the wry send-up of wealth and aspiration, Maum still leaves room for the loneliness and longing behind both characters’ startling choices. Smart, strange, and insightful, Alan Opts Out is an irresistible modern social comedy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An advertising executive's exasperation with the business world strains his marriage in this pitch-perfect satire from Maum (Touch). Fifty-something Alan Anderson toils ceaselessly on his firm's pitch for a pro-milk campaign, hoping to garner his 10th industry excellence award and quell his nagging fear that "something dark" is approaching. He also plans to reinvigorate his stagnant marriage to Vivian, his wife of almost 20 years, by giving her the backyard swimming pool she longs for at their opulent home in Greenwich, Conn. Meanwhile, Vivian treads water raising their two daughters, 15 and 12, and obsesses over becoming one of their seaside neighborhood's Queen Annes, an elite group of wives chosen by chic Whitby, their "bully, princess, icon." After Alan's bid for the milk campaign curdles, he retreats to his daughters' backyard playhouse, where he finds himself in a "poetic mood." He decides to drop out of the rat race and live there, unplugged from the family's smarthome, leaving Vivian unmoored and slipping deeper into Whitby's orbit. Packed with Maum's gimlet-eyed observations on the "futile" and "absurd" nature of Alan's work and Vivian's indefatigable social aspirations, the novel offers a fierce and funny portrait of late-stage capitalism and its limited supply of happiness. It's a gem.
