“Over the last week, if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that you’re only who you choose to be. Every moment. The past is gone. Memories are no more solid than dreams. The only real thing, the only true thing, is the present. That’s it.”

“So the things we’ve done don’t count?”

“Of course they do. But we can decide how much. And we can decide what we want the present to be like. We can live it however we want. Own every minute. Be the person we want to be.”

Book Review:

Review by Katherine Petersen  AUG 6, 2011)

A man wakes up, naked, shivering and alone on a desolate beach. He has no idea who he is or why he’s there. He and the reader gradually get clues: he’s Daniel Hayes; he lives in Los Angeles; he’s in northern Maine; and the cops want him, but he doesn’t know why. So begins a new mystery from Marcus Sakey, known for the Blade Itself and The Amateurs. Determined to confirm his identity and find out why he traveled cross-country in a drunk, drug-induced haze, Hayes re-traces he cross-country journey to Los Angeles.

At the same time, in Los Angeles, a woman changes her identity numerous times, stealing a gun and searching in bars for Hayes. Another man, with evil intent it seems—he’s described by one character as a cockroach who crawls in and out of everyone’s dark places–startles Hayes’s lawyer while in the shower, also in search of the elusive Hayes. These three characters will come together at some point, but to say more will give away much of Sakey’s story which twists and turns much like driving the hairpins of a high mountain road.

Sakey’s story is much more than a mystery though. He uses Daniel, and his dissociative fugue, to launch a literary discussion of memory, identity and self. What is memory’s role in self? Do memories make a person? Can you concoct a self from putting together memories?

Rarely in a story are the reader and the main character learning and piecing together information simultaneously. Learning along with Hayes is part of what makes this novel fascinating, along with the mystery of course. Sakey also uses alternating viewpoints to give different perspectives and give us information about other characters. This method works in this novel, but what doesn’t, at least for me, is when Sakey switches from traditional narrative style to a screenplay style. We learn Hayes is a screenwriter, but this change in style stopped the story for me rather than being an ingenious style shift.

Sakey begins the story with short, choppy sentences that mimic the panic that Hayes feels when he initially comes out of the water. In other places, Sakey has a lyrical prose style, making the reader want to read slowly to savor the language as much as the ideas. His vivid descriptions bring places and situations to life, like the first time he looks in the mirror hoping that seeing himself will free his memory.

“No fog parted. No veil lifted. The man in the mirror offered no answers.

He looked exhausted, bruised and worn and dark-circled, but more or less familiar.  For a vertiginous moment, Daniel lost track of which was him and which was the reflection, like one was a doppleganger that could break free and act independently, as he seemed to have snapped from his life.”

Sakey excels at character development, but he also succeeds with dialogue and showing rather than telling about the relationships between his characters. They’re all so intertwined to give an example would ruin parts of the story. While I can’t tell you why the title of the book is appropriate, trust me that it is. For those who appreciate a literary mystery topped with much to think about regarding self, identity and memory, Sakey’s tale will fit the bill. He has surprises in store, and it’s a wild ride.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 38 readers
PUBLISHER:	Dutton Adult (June 9, 2011)
REVIEWER:	Katherine Petersen
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Marcus Sakey
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: The Amateurs

Bibliography:

• The Blade Itself (2007)
• At the City’s Edge (2008)
• Good People (2008)
• The Amateurs (2009)
• Scar Tissue: Stories (2010)
• The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes (June 2011)

“Do you remember?” Mitch said staring out the darkened window, “how we used to talk about the rich guys, the CEOs and politicians? How we used to hate them for acting in their own interests instead of for the good of everyone else

“We went into this thinking we were going to stick it to guys like that. Like Johnny. People who broke the rules for their own good. And now here we are. Thinking the same way.”

Book Review:

Review by Devon Shepherd  AUG 6, 2011)

The titular novices of Marcus Sakey’s recent novel, The Amateurs, are four friends, three men and one woman, who band together against the frigidity of Chicago’s winters and the loneliness of urban life to form the Thursday Night Drinking Club. But amateur drinkers these four are not – experts in the art of throwing back martinis, the first thing any of these four do in a time of crisis is reach for a bottle of vodka. If only the same could be said for their foray into the criminal underworld.

Rounding thirty, they are poster children for urban ennui: Alex is a former law-student whose sideline as a bartender turned full-time ten years ago when his now-ex wife gave birth to their daughter, Cassie; Ian, a trader with a coke problem, flew too high, too fast with a phenomenal trade in undervalued Hudson-Pollam Biolabs stock, only to face increasing loss and derision as he stalks the financial markets, looking for another off-the-radar meteor to ride back to his seat among the stars; Mitch is a bookish hotel doorman who carries a torch for Jenn, the only female member of their drinking crew, but lacks the spine to do anything about it; Jenn is a travel agent who dreams of travelling herself but can’t seem to commit to making it happen, much like she can’t seem to commit to any of the men she dates, content to coast along on what is left of her good looks. If the group reads like a clichéd list of youngish urbanites, well that is largely because it is. But in lieu of nuanced characters, Mr. Sakey presents us with a moral dilemma.

Imagine you could steal a substantial sum of money, not enough to make you rich, but enough to alleviate some of your immediate problems and broaden your future horizons, would you do it? What if I promised you wouldn’t get caught? Or what if that money belonged to people you knew were overdue for some karmic comeuppance, people like professional criminals?

That is the question the Thursday Night Drinking Crew faces when Alex’s no-good boss, Johnny Love, bullies him into posing as muscle for an after-hours deal. The money for the deal is locked away in a safe, but Alex knows the combination. Resentful of Johnny Love for coercing his participation, Alex tells the crew about the deal. With their last game of “What would you do if . . .. you had half-a-million dollars?” (called “Ready-go” here) still fresh in their minds, the others are primed and ready to fantasize about travelling the world or day trading themselves to a fortune, but the stakes for Alex are much higher.

Cassie’s step-father has received a promotion that requires moving the family to Phoenix. Alex’s ex-wife informs him that, while she has no intention of keeping his daughter from him, due to a series of late or missed child support payments, he doesn’t have a legal say in the matter. Figuring (bizarrely) that making up the late payments will give him the legal right to stop the move, Alex pushes his friends, first Jenn, who he’s casually sleeping with, then Ian, who has developed a gambling problem (and the concomitant debts) to help him steal the money. Following Alex’s lead, the group uses Mitch’s crush on Jenn to coax him out of his reluctance.

Because why should they be shut out when everyone else has their hands in the cookie jar? Bear Stearns is in the midst of collapsing as the sub-prime mortgage crisis guts the economy, leaving many on Wall Street millions, if not billions, of dollars richer. Regular people like them are being stolen from everyday. Why shouldn’t they step up and start taking want they want too?

Ian brings up a problem that has become a classic in both game theory and moral philosophy, The Prisoner’s Dilemma. Although it can take many forms, the dilemma is usually presented in the form of two people getting arrested for a crime. The police know they are guilty, but don’t have enough evidence to press charges. The criminals are separated and told that if they rat out their partner they will go free, but their partner will get 10 years. If both criminals stay silent, they will each get charged with a lesser crime that carries a penalty of, say, 6 months in jail. If both confess, they will split the time, each serving 5 years. What is the rational thing to do here? If maintaining your freedom is a priority, then obviously you’re best off confessing before your friend does. But if the game is repeated, that is, if after the first prisoner confesses, the second prisoner is still given the opportunity to confess, the best thing to do over time is to stay silent, because 6 months (the time served if both stay silent) is better than 5 years (the time served if both confess).
Since the Thursday Night Drinking Club do not belong to the criminal underworld, and do not need to maintain trust and relationships of fellow criminals, there is no iteration of the game for them, and so, according to Ian, they have nothing to lose, and much to gain, by betraying Johnny Love.

But, in moral philosophy, the Prisoner’s Dilemma is often used to illustrate how rational self-interest can produce socially undesirable outcomes. Or to put it another way, the problem describes the tension between self-interest and the interests of the group, because a group where everyone acts in self-interest can sometimes produce individuals that are all worse off than they would have been if they had acted in the interest of the group.

As the four friends plan their heist, they fail to anticipate some obvious contingencies, and the robbery goes the only way it could – horribly wrong. Left with a pile of money and a new set of problems, the group promises to lay low for a while, each swearing not to spend their share of the money until the heat has died down and they’re sure they’re beyond suspicion.

But group interests aren’t enough to keep Alex from breaking their pact and paying his overdue child support. Ian, fearing for their personal safety (when Ian exchanged information about their plan for guns, Katz, the gangster running an illegal casino, threatened the lives of his friends if he didn’t settle immediately following the robbery) pays off his gambling debts. However, word travels fast in the underworld, and Victor, the other end of Johnny Love’s deal, gets wind of this ridiculously inept band of robbers. Not planning on ever having to deal with these criminals again, the group didn’t account for iteration – and as things go from bad to heart-breakingly horrible, they quickly realize that what they made the wrong choice: they should have played it straight instead of betraying a group of known criminals.

Despite all this philosophy – Plato, Nietzsche, and Sartre all get paraphrased for good measure – this is a darkly effervescent book. In this fast-paced and entertaining novel, Mr. Sakey spins the crime genre on its head to ask what happens when regular folk take it into their heads to become criminals.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 25 readers
PUBLISHER:	NAL Trade; Reprint edition (June 7, 2011)
REVIEWER:	Devon Shepherd
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Marcus Sakey
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes

Bibliography:

• The Blade Itself (2007)
• At the City’s Edge (2008)
• Good People (2008)
• The Amateurs (2009)
• Scar Tissue: Stories (2010)
• The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes (June 2011)