True Failure by Alex Higley (Cardinal; Old Open) is a clever, comedic send-up of the 21st-century meanings of success and failure.
The novel opens as Ben, a Chicago, Ill., accountant, has just lost his corporate job. Ben is leery of sharing this news with his wife, Tara. The couple is struggling to pay off tens of thousands of dollars of mortgage, credit card, and student loan debt, and he doesn't want to upset her. Instead, a random conversation with a friend inspires him to become a contestant on Big Shot, a reality TV program--and to conceal this from Tara as well. The show features up-and-coming entrepreneurs who pitch new product ideas to celebrity investors for prize money. However, in order for Ben to land an audition, he must devise a concrete commercial idea ASAP.
Meanwhile, Tara, a "dormant artist" who cares for other people's children, struggles with issues of her own, such as an emotionally scarring incident from the past and a burdensome personal secret that she cannot bring herself to share with Ben just yet. As the two of them circumvent the truth, Marcy, who works behind the scenes of Big Shot, ultimately shapes the couple's story. This woman, too, is living a life shrouded in dark secrets.
Higley's insightful, inventive storytelling shines in his third book. Eccentricities of the absurd elevate this deeply thought-provoking take on capitalism and the consequences of deception. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines