Book Review: “Set for Life” by Andrew Ewell
Publish or Perish
There seems to be a new trend lately in novels being published, usually by first-time male writers, about men who are, in some capacity, outright failures as human beings. In The Golem of Brooklyn, a young man gets stoned and creates a giant golem out of clay that comes to life. In The Men Can’t Be Saved, a junior copywriter loses his job and then pursues (some may say stalks) a woman to a neighbouring state. Well, in the forthcoming Set for Life (which sneakily shares a title with a real-life get-rich-quick self-help book), a man fails at writing a novel on a trip to France and comes back to New York City and environs to only sleep with his best friend’s wife. That’s the crux of this novel, which goes on to show how — spoiler alert! — this man will proceed to lose everything that’s in any way meaningful to him: his marriage, his job, his way of living. That’s a bit of a reveal of the plot of this novel, yes, but other than that there’s not a whole lot to say about this book that isn’t an evaluation of sorts. The plot is very paint-by-numbers, and you can well surmise that things will not end well for the nameless protagonist, though there is the promise of a new beginning at the end. So, there’s not a whole lot to say about this novel on the surface — except that it’s very enjoyable if you ignore a bit of a saggy middle.
If anything, this is a book that is a campus life novel, for our hero is also a professor at a liberal arts college that’s very tony in upstate New York. However, he comes up with all sorts of humourous ways to muddle out of problems that present themselves. For example, he gets a 20-year-old student of his to teach one of his classes unprepared when the narrator wants to nip out to the city to see his mistress. Of course, bedlam breaks out and the consequences are bad for our protagonist. If that’s any example, this is a novel where comedic things with a dark edge keep happening to Nameless Hero (as I’d like to call him, even if he’s perhaps, more of an Anti-Hero) as he traverses through his life in a sardonic way. To wit, Set for Life is a deeply cynical book — a look at people with First World Problems who cannot look much further beyond their noses. That’s all this debut novel is about: it’s a character study of a man who is a complete, if you’ll pardon the expression, asshat. Everything he does is selfish and vain, and he looks at others with snide lassitude. Even the ones he (supposedly) loves get caught in his withering gaze.
To that end, I’ve read a handful of advance reviews of this book that indicate that the main character is unlikeable. I wouldn’t go that far, for this is an engaging read — never do you get the urge to throw the book across the room in frustration at how much of a cad the guy is. (And I wouldn’t want to do that anyhow, as I’d probably break the Kindle that I was reading this galley on.) I would imagine though that this is a book along the lines of A Confederacy of Dunces, which is a well-liked book with an irredeemable main character (or so I’m told as I have yet to crack that book open). I think Set for Life is a book about the “now”: how these times are disposable and meant for fast consumption, with nobody giving a care as to how another person may feel. People in this world (fiction or otherwise) are meant to be exploited for someone to reach a goal, usually involving the fairer sex. To that end, I wonder if I’ll remember Set for Life after some time has passed. I don’t mean that as a criticism — it’s just that this novel is such a work that it is kind of like a Big Mac and fries of literature. And I’m not referring to the Stephen King version of a Big Mac and fries of literature: this is the kind of thing that goes down easy, but you’ll still be hungry for more an hour after you’ve digested it. On second thought, maybe this book might be more like Chinese food than McDonald’s.
What did I think of this novel? I liked it enough, and the churlishness of the main character didn’t bother me. However, is it memorable? Not really. I think part of the problem may lie with the facts that I laid out in the first paragraph of this review. This is the third book that’s vaguely similar to others that I’ve read in less than a year. Still, the author has talent and promise — as evidenced by the writing fellowships he has obtained over the years. Thus, if you’re wondering about a book such as this, and The Golem of Brooklyn and The Men Can’t Be Saved are not available at your local library (or bookstore for that matter), then you might want to give this one a try. I can think of far worse books to read — a point that Set for Life brings up in its telling as its nameless author tries to decide which type of book he’d like to have published to gain tenure at his college. All in all, there’s stuff here that’s worthy of mining, and there’s some food (there’s that theme again!) for thought. It may seem funny that it’s taken at least three authors to describe how men are failing in the years after the COVID pandemic, but it isn’t that funny at all. Set for Life may have you questioning your masculinity. In the post-#MeToo era, maybe that’s not a bad thing.
Andrew Ewell’s Set for Life will be published by Simon & Schuster on February 6, 2024.
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