Review by New York Times Review
NO MATTER WHAT our desks or email in-boxes may look like, humans have an innate urge to impose order: to categorize, to organize, to identify. This urge is why we see monsters in the shadows after we turn out the bedroom lights, or find Elvis staring out at us from our toast. For marketing purposes, we tend to apply the same categorizing instinct to our storytellers, calling the products of their labor science fiction or fantasy, thriller or adventure. Collectively, we refer to these labels as genre. Over time, we've come to think of genre as a specific kind of story. Like the monster in the corner, this is a mistake. Rather, genre should be considered a method of telling a story, of breaking open the confines of the everyday to reveal the superlative qualities in humanity. It's a canvas, not a brush. This is a distinction often missed, but it's one that Manuel Gonzales understands innately. In "The Regional Office Is Under Attack!," he uses the familiar conventions of the superhero story to explore our expectations of our heroes and of ourselves. The Regional Office of the title is an assemblage of supernaturally talented young women recruited and trained to fight villains with names like Mud Slug and, more generally, "the amassing forces of darkness that threaten, at nearly every turn, the fate of the planet." One of the Regional Office's founders is the enigmatic Oyemi, gifted - or cursed - with equally enigmatic powers as a result of an accident that's never fully explained, or even described; the other is Oyemi's childhood friend Mr. Niles. (Neither of these are the names they were born with, but like their specific histories and the exact story of the battle against Mud Slug, their true names are irrelevant to Gonzales's purposes.) Oyemi and Mr. Niles are tipped off to threats and potential recruits by a trinity of bald, silent oracles who lie in pools of luminescent liquid, issuing cryptic messages via a nearby printer. The book begins, fittingly enough, on a day when the Regional Office is under attack. Primary among the rotating viewpoints are those of the attacker Rose, crawling through the ductwork deep beneath the Manhattan building where the Regional Office is hidden, and the defender Sarah, trapped within it. Like the Regional Office's own operatives, Rose is gifted; Sarah is also gifted, but in an entirely different way. If any of this sounds familiar, it's because you've seen it before. The oracles are straight out of Steven Spielberg's movie version of the Philip K. Dick story "The Minority Report," and Rose's crawl through the ventilation shafts is straight out of "Die Hard." The similarities are entirely deliberate, and Gonzales faces them head-on. Unaware that Rose is already using the ventilation system, Sarah considers her only option "to 'Die Hard' it John McClane style." The oracles "prognosticate in the time-honored manner of oracles littered all over B movies and pulp science-fiction and fantasy novels." Littered though it may be with interdimensional time-traveling villains and assassins, the world of the Regional Office is also well stocked with multiplex blockbusters, aging orange iMacs and turtle-shaped kiddie pools. When Oyemi's mysterious accident happens, she's on her way home from Ikea. This is our world, pop culture and all. When Rose arrives for training at what she thinks of as assassin school, she frames her surroundings in terms of films she's seen: Will she find herself under the tutelage of a goofy but ultimately wise teacher, as in "The Karate Kid," or will she butt heads with her bunkmates, à la "The Parent Trap"? Sarah, during her own training, does indeed clash with one of her comrades, and she has "seen enough movies, read enough Gossip Girl novels to know that sooner or later, she and Jasmine would lock horns again." Supernaturally powerful though they may be, these characters, like us, are constantly searching for their role in the world: the place where they fit in. The stories they know are the stories we know. Like Gonzales's 2013 story collection, "The Miniature Wife," "The Regional Office Is Under Attack!" is primarily concerned not with the action-packed events at the surface but with the greater question of human alienation, through talent, technology or a combination of the two. Neither Rose nor Sarah is entirely comfortable with her skills, or the life those skills lead her toward living. Also like "The Miniature Wife" - where stories like "The Disappearance of the Sebali Tribe" and "The Artist's Voice" adopted the tone and style of magazine journalism, as leisurely and thoughtful as any reported article from The Atlantic or The New Yorker - "The Regional Office Is Under Attack!" relies heavily on invented history. In this case, it's a series of interstitial chapters from a theoretical study of the Regional Office ("The Regional Office Is Under Attack: Tracking the Rise and Fall of an American Institution"). Even within its boundaries, we are never allowed to forget that histories, too, are just another kind of story: The fictional history admits regularly that some events are unknowable, and often offers multiple versions of the same event, giving no clues as to which is true. Gonzales's prose is crisp, but fittingly looping and parenthetical, often doubling back on itself to offer a slightly different interpretation. The point here seems to be that there is no such thing as a simple story, because all stories are about humans, and no human is entirely knowable. This is high-concept stuff, and opportunities get lost in the shuffle. Some of Gonzales's early conflicts fizzle into nothing, like Rose's crush on her recruiter, Henry, which occupies many early chapters before evaporating into the ether. This might be true to life, but it feels distractingly aimless in fiction. The assassin teams themselves - aside from Rose and Sarah - are too often relegated to mere set dressing: Most of the decisions about these women's lives are made by the male characters in the book, which seems to bother none of them, and the few gestures we get toward their inner lives don't go very far toward countering the unsurprising words used to describe the "girls" ("beautiful," "striking," "bigger than life"). Obviously, if books were long enough to fully explore every character, none of us would live long enough to finish more than one. The beautiful but deadly female assassin, however, is just as much an action-film standard as the crawl through the ventilation shafts, and in a book that spends so much time skillfully dismantling clichés to see what makes them tick, it would have been fun to see this one turned inside out, too. Still, "The Regional Office Is Under Attack!" is an entertaining and satisfying novel. Like the best of the stories it satirizes so gently, it's rollicking good fun on the surface, action-packed and shiny in all the right places; underneath that surface, though, it's thoughtful and well considered. Gonzales has created a superheroic fighting force of the kind we've grown so used to through constant exposure to the Avengers and various iterations of the X-Men, and then he has turned out their pockets and flipped open their diaries. Supernatural though they may be, these characters are searching for where they fit in. KELLY BRAFFET'S latest novel, "Save Yourself," was published in 2014.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [April 24, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* You might want to get a firm grip on your socks before cracking open this one; otherwise, Gonzales is likely to knock them off. It's very difficult to categorize this mind-bending novel. Is it comedy? Science fiction? Thriller? Spoof? Whatever it is, it's pure excitement. The story involves a shadowy organization called the Regional Office, described by its mission statement as a barrier of last resort between the survival of the Planet and the amassing forces of Darkness; as the book opens, the Regional Office is being attacked by those very forces. As the mayhem progresses, the focus zooms in on two women: Rose, who's leading the attack, and Sarah, who's fighting for her life defending the Regional Office (even as her colleagues are dying around her). The story jumps back and forth in time, showing us how Rose and Sarah became the women they are today: Rose is a trained assassin, Sarah is a potential killing machine with a cybernetic arm. The prose is lively and self-aware (the author clearly knows his story is way over the top and has fun with it for that very reason); meanwhile, though, the action is pretty much nonstop, and there's a thread of melancholy running throughout Rose and Sarah might have been ordinary young women if certain events, and the machinations of highly placed individuals who saw them as weapons, had not intervened. All in all, a brilliant genre-blender.--Pitt, David Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Gonzales, already the author of an excellent story collection (The Miniature Wife), offers an intricate, if frustrating, debut novel about a subterranean superhero organization under attack by its own rogue operatives. Split between characters on both sides of the ambush-Rose, hoping to overthrow the Regional Office, and Sarah, bound to protect-the narrative not only bounces between perspectives in short, propelling chapters, but also pinballs in time, revealing, amid the chaos, the history of the clandestine Manhattan-based society, which recruits young women with extraordinary powers to protect the world from terrors unseen by average citizens. Tucked a mile underground (beneath an office dealing in luxury getaways for the rich and famous), these women train and receive assignments from people like the charming Henry, and founding leaders Mr. Niles and the mysterious Oyemi, but when an internal rift finds Henry at odds with his superiors, he organizes a revolt. Gonzales writes with an abundance of imagination, riffing on comic book and pop culture plot lines and characters while adding his own unique perspective. The novel is not as satisfying as his short stories, and it occasionally feels overextended, but there are moments of brilliance. Agent: PJ Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Associates. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In a world where evil villains run corporate organizations to hatch and execute dastardly plans using the most cutting-edge technology and magics, only one organization is capable of saving the universe. The Regional Office, run by the quite-normal Mr. Niles and super-magicked Oyemi, employs all-seeing Oracles (think the film Minority Report) and a group of superpowered female assassins to combat the rising darkness. There is a traitor in the Regional Office, however, who assists in a full-on assault that will challenge the balance of good vs. evil. This debut novel is a nonstop action fest peppered with pop-culture references, explosions, and karate-esque fight scenes that would make Chuck Norris proud. The plotline can be confusing owing to the narrative changing among the characters, and their differing perceptions of reality, but the action is captivating. Gonzales retains the fantastical qualities introduced in his award-winning story collection, The Miniature Wife, with a few more robots thrown in. VERDICT Fans of Chuck Palahniuk and Austin Grossman will blast through this quick and fun read. [See Prepub Alert, 10/12/15.]-Jennifer Funk, McKendree Univ. Lib., Lebanon, IL © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A clash of swords, spells, and wills erupts in an upper Manhattan office building under assault by well-armed mercenaries. A dense mythology threatens to undermine this frenetic action novel by award-winning short story writer Gonzales (The Miniature Wife, 2013), but the author just manages to wobble to the end of a novel rife with paranormal forces, violence, and revenge. Much of the exposition comes from selections from a nonfiction history of "The Regional Office," a shadowy organization operating under the cover of an extreme-travel concierge service for wealthy clients. The firm's equally murky mission is to protect the world from evil forces using Oracles seemingly plucked wholesale from Philip K. Dick's "Minority Report" and homegrown female assassins who wouldn't be out of place in The Matrix. The action of the assault centers on two women: Rose, who leads a team of traitorous operatives in attacking the venerable institution, and agency executive Sarah, who fiercely defends her office with speed, strength, and a badass mechanical arm. There's also something of a love story buried beneath all the chaos, involving Rose's mentor, Henry, and the woman for whom he abandons his allegiance to the Regional Office. But stripped down to its essentials, the novel is a hyperkinetic sci-fi set piece along the lines of Die Hard seeded with paranormal elements cribbed from half a dozen other franchises and the absent-parent grudges that fuel any number of teen novels. At times, the book struggles to regain its brisk pace as Gonzales plumbs flashbacks, interludes, and the conveniently parallel history of the Regional Office to flesh out characters, back story, and motives. Nevertheless, genre enthusiasts will love the spooky cyberpunk spirit at play here, and resolute readers will be rewarded with an unexpected ending that ratchets up the action long after the Regional Office has been abandoned. A surprisingly erudite bit of sci-fi that throws in everything but the kitchen sink. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
