Coe (The Rotters' Club) broadly satirizes the disconnectedness of modern life with the story of Maxwell Sim, who has 70 Facebook friends but no one he can turn to when his wife and daughter leave him. After a trip to Australia to reconnect with his estranged father leads nowhere, Trevor, one of Max's few real friends, offers him an unusual gig: drive a Prius to the northernmost tip of the British Isles as part of a promotion for a startup eco-toothbrush company. Max takes a meandering route that allows him to visit his ex-wife, check in on his father's long-empty apartment, and pay a visit to the parents of his childhood friends. He also develops a romantic fixation on the voice coming from his GPS, which he names Emma. True connection is elusive: Max gains insight to his marriage, but only after using a fake identity to befriend his ex-wife online; haunting incidents from his teenage years come into focus belatedly, and the clarity he finally achieves comes at the prompting of a stranger. Coe has a lot of fun skewering the way technology and social media have become buttresses of society, but the antic plot and unfortunately precious conclusion water down the thoughtful points. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review
“Coe’s voice, spoken through Max’s perspective, effuses the novel with an easy, understated and satirical sense of humor that is a joy to read . . . An excellent and entertaining take on how our countless methods of modern communication are making it harder to truly connect.” —Katie Stroh, The Daily Texan
“[A] beguiling combination of picaresque comic adventure, meditation on the idea of meta-narrative, and thought-provoking reflection on the place of social media in our lives.” —Heather Paulson, Booklist
“Funny, acerbic and, most of all, a novel that could not have been born at any other time than the present.” —“What We’re Reading Now,” NPR
“A smart satire of materialism and modern life . . . Coe is a funny writer, and it's a testament to his skill with character that for all of his hero’s maddening faults and failures, Sim never wears out his welcome . . . Much like its targets, the book stubbornly delivers moments of humor and humanity.” —Chris Barton, Los Angeles Times
“Touching and admirable . . . Coe masterfully equips [his] vibrant and ingenious novels . . . with trap-like ironies that snap shut on his characters without bending them out of shape.” —Mark Martin, Barnes and Noble Review
“Beguiling . . . Coe has devised a powerful structure upon which to hang his exacting sense of humor and acute social observations, [and he] leaves the reader uncomfortably engaged with the consequences of Max’s terrible privacy, an unbearable loneliness that I would wager many of us share in this globalized world of greater and greater connectedness in which we are anything but connected.” —Martha McPhee, San Francisco Chronicle
“Coe’s ninth novel cleverly plays with the reclusive-in-plain-sight n...
Description:
From Publishers Weekly
Coe (The Rotters' Club) broadly satirizes the disconnectedness of modern life with the story of Maxwell Sim, who has 70 Facebook friends but no one he can turn to when his wife and daughter leave him. After a trip to Australia to reconnect with his estranged father leads nowhere, Trevor, one of Max's few real friends, offers him an unusual gig: drive a Prius to the northernmost tip of the British Isles as part of a promotion for a startup eco-toothbrush company. Max takes a meandering route that allows him to visit his ex-wife, check in on his father's long-empty apartment, and pay a visit to the parents of his childhood friends. He also develops a romantic fixation on the voice coming from his GPS, which he names Emma. True connection is elusive: Max gains insight to his marriage, but only after using a fake identity to befriend his ex-wife online; haunting incidents from his teenage years come into focus belatedly, and the clarity he finally achieves comes at the prompting of a stranger. Coe has a lot of fun skewering the way technology and social media have become buttresses of society, but the antic plot and unfortunately precious conclusion water down the thoughtful points. (Mar.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review
“Coe’s voice, spoken through Max’s perspective, effuses the novel with an easy, understated and satirical sense of humor that is a joy to read . . . An excellent and entertaining take on how our countless methods of modern communication are making it harder to truly connect.” —Katie Stroh, The Daily Texan
“[A] beguiling combination of picaresque comic adventure, meditation on the idea of meta-narrative, and thought-provoking reflection on the place of social media in our lives.” —Heather Paulson, Booklist
“Funny, acerbic and, most of all, a novel that could not have been born at any other time than the present.” —“What We’re Reading Now,” NPR
“A smart satire of materialism and modern life . . . Coe is a funny writer, and it's a testament to his skill with character that for all of his hero’s maddening faults and failures, Sim never wears out his welcome . . . Much like its targets, the book stubbornly delivers moments of humor and humanity.” —Chris Barton, Los Angeles Times
“Touching and admirable . . . Coe masterfully equips [his] vibrant and ingenious novels . . . with trap-like ironies that snap shut on his characters without bending them out of shape.” —Mark Martin, Barnes and Noble Review
“Beguiling . . . Coe has devised a powerful structure upon which to hang his exacting sense of humor and acute social observations, [and he] leaves the reader uncomfortably engaged with the consequences of Max’s terrible privacy, an unbearable loneliness that I would wager many of us share in this globalized world of greater and greater connectedness in which we are anything but connected.” —Martha McPhee, San Francisco Chronicle
“Coe’s ninth novel cleverly plays with the reclusive-in-plain-sight n...