Well
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
The "astonishingly sharp and satisfying" debut novel follows the denizens of a working-class Seattle suburb through the trials of modern life (The Washington Post).
Well marks the auspicious debut of a singular and unflinching voice and vision. Set primarily among the working-class of a Seattle suburb called Federal Way, this highly original novel—told in the form of interlinked short stories—presents the lives of a large cast of characters, all lost in various modes of darkness and despair. Whether struggling for connection or heartbreakingly alone, they grapple with the afflictions of modern life as well as their own compulsions. As if trapped at the bottom of a well, they struggle to glimpse the light that they know is there, showing the way to their salvation.
They search in sex, in drugs and in violence; in visions of Apocalypse and Creation, dreams of angels and killers and local sports championships. Compact, finely wrought, and powerfully charged, Well ultimately rises toward the light, in a finale that affirms the human capacity for hope.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A starred or boxed review indicates a book of outstanding quality. A review with a blue-tinted title indicates a book of unusual commercial interest that hasn't received a starred or boxed review.WELLMatthew McIntosh. Grove, $24 (288p) "I think something inside of her broke, whatever that string is that holds people together, it snapped." "That string" is the leitmotif of this unusual, dark debut novel with an ensemble cast. McIntosh assembles different episodes and voices to create an impressionistic tableau of Federal Way, Washington, a blue-collar town facing the loss of blue-collar jobs and culture. McIntosh's characters are introduced in first-person testimonies and third-person sketches that build matter-of-factly and then trail off ambiguously, like entries in a police blotter if the police blotter were written by Samuel Beckett. They lead lives of quiet despair, punctuated by bursts of violence, benders and bad sex. Physical pain harries many of the characters, madness others, and almost all are cursed with deteriorating personal relationships. Among the most moving episodes is a long chapter, "Fishboy," narrated by Will, a student at a small college in Nebraska who is studying fisheries. The story flashes back to his dangerous obsession with a classmate, Emily Swanson, and his father leaving his mother. Another beautifully executed sequence, "Border," shows how the suicide of an ex-boxer, Jim, is viewed by his sister-in-law, his brother, his buddies, a former opponent and his mother's friends. The sustained glide from voice to voice is virtuosic, and the writing is dogged it never gets literary; it digs through the clich s and the usual inarticulateness of the stories people tell in bars and grocery store lines; and it stumbles on diamonds in the rough everywhere. McIntosh is only 26, but he is already an artful registrar of the heart's lower frequencies.
