The Failure

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The Failure is a picaresque novel set in Los Angeles about two guys who conceive and badly execute a plan to rob a Korean check-cashing store in order to finance the prototype for an impossibly ridiculous Internet application."James Greer, one of the nimblest and most multilayered American fiction writers, has, with his latest novel The Failure, pulled off a sublime and shivery-smooth literary hat-trick-cum-emotional-gotcha. I defy anyone to come up with an equation to explain how this book's first impression as a ridiculously clever, funny crime story can gradually disclose a metanovel built from far more encyclopedic scratch only to reveal upon its conclusion a central, overriding thought so heartfelt literally it trembles your lower lip. This is one stunning piece of work." --Dennis Cooper, author of Ugly Man"James Greer's The Failure is such an unqualified success, both in conception and execution, that I have grave doubts he actually wrote it."--Steven SoderberghJames Greer is the author of the novel Artificial Light (Akashic Books), which won a California Book Award for Best Debut Novel, and the nonfiction book Guided By Voices: A Brief History (Grove Press), a biography of the band for which he once played bass guitar. He is currently working with director Steven Soderbergh on a rock musical about Cleopatra starring Catherine Zeta-Jones. He lives in Los Angeles.From Publishers WeeklyA robbery goes awry for a young L.A. slacker on a get-rich-quick scheme in Greer's cleverly fashioned, flimsy second novel (after Artificial Light). Protagonist Guy Forget wants his square MIT professor brother, Marcus, to lend him the $50,000 he needs to build the prototype for his invention, a sophisticated information-mining computer system called Pandemonium, which will transform Guy into a man with clout. But Marcus can't stand his brother and is still in competition with him for the approval of their father. Then Dad suddenly dies, and leaves Guy the exact amount he needs, but it's too late to stop Plan Charlie, Guy's harebrained plot to rob a Korean check-cashing service along with his dog-walker friend, Billy. The other characters getting in Guy's way are his manipulative femme fatale new girlfriend, Violet, and her scheming jealous pursuer, Sven Transvoort. Greer creates emotional distance by cutting up the sequence of events so that chapters are not chronological and inserting self-conscious comments by the not entirely omniscient but very reliable narrator. Running gags render this suspense parody cheeky, experimentally cool, and not terrifically memorable. (Mar.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistSupercilious twentysomething Guy Forget is smart and good looking. His only ambition is to become rich without working to become rich. So it is fated that evil, supercilious Sven Transvoort, who is obsessed with Violet, Guy’s gorgeous, supercilious girlfriend, dupes Guy into robbing a Korean check-cashing store to finance the start-up of a company that will market nonexistent, subliminal advertising software on unsuspecting Web sites. We learn in the book’s fourth paragraph that the robbery fails, and Guy is in a coma; the whys and hows follow in a determinedly nonlinear manner. Author Greer, whose first novel, Artificial Light (2006), was critically praised, is a writer of considerable talent whose techniques, tropes, and wordplay recall Thomas Pynchon. His observations about his characters, and about the Los Angeles landscape they inhabit, are shrewd and perceptive. Guy’s glib rants on all manner of subjects are skillfully wrought bits of self-absorption. But they’re also a bit maddening. Are Guy and Violet worth the effort? Readers may differ on that question, but there’s no doubt about Greer being a writer of substance and talent. --Thomas Gaughan