The disappointment A novel

A married couple struggles to connect while on vacation in Broker's offbeat and emotive debut. Jack, a lapsed playwright, hopes that a trip to the Oregon coast will help lift the spirits of his husband, Randy, whose mother recently died. After arriving at their friends' house, Jack distracts himself by sexting with strangers and has unusual encounters with the locals. One, a method actor, tells a sob story but breaks character when Jack shares why he stopped writing plays. When the couple get invited to a party hosted by one of Jack's sexting partners, their strained relationship is put to the test. While the absurdist elements, including an insistent baggage clerk doggedly attempting to return luggage the couple never lost and a teenager who convinces Randy that asking questions into a tape recorder will allow him to hear his mother's voice in the static of the playback, don't add up to much, Broker packs a wallop in his depiction of Jack's hamfisted attempts to fix things, and he threads clever dialogue throughout, as when Jack describes sexting with strangers to cope with Randy's gloom as a habit that could "bore boredom." Readers will expect good things from Broker to come. Agent: Kent Wolf, Neon Literary. (Mar.)

A queer couple vacations on the Oregon coast, bringing their resentments, insecurities, and the ashes of a dead mother. Randy Rourke, a world-renowned photographer, and his husband, Jack, a former playwright, vacation at the Oregon beach house of two of Randy's patrons. Perhaps the sun and sea will alleviate Randy's depression over his mother's death and Jack's sense of worthlessness at his recent abandonment of his career. But it's not always sunny in Oregon, the water is rough, and the locals are weird. Jack, the emotionally unreliable narrator, has run out of patience with Randy's obsessive grief, the travel-size baggie of Ms. Rourke's ashes he carries around, and most importantly, Randy's inability to attend to him. A neighbor girl convinces Randy he can speak to his mother's spirit through a voice recorder, which begins Randy's confinement in the home office and Jack's retreat to a Grindr-like app for some not-so-harmless attention. An additional distraction appears in the guise of neighbors Paul and Polly, who invite the couple over for dinner, hot-tubbing, and some tantric massage. At the heart of the novel is Jack and Randy's desire for connection as they each continually misinterpret what the other needs. This tension produces a beautiful portrait of a long-term relationship and the hazards that come from assuming that understanding improves over time. Broker cleverly recalibrates our perception of Jack and Randy as the novel progresses, layered with the new play Jack is tentatively crafting in his head. How can we know each other, the play asks, the novel asks, as we perpetually react, shift, and hide our identities? Which character gets to be the lead, in art and in life? A series of short, emotionally seductive chapters answer the question. A masterful understanding of human nature distinguishes this sexy debut. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.