There is an overarching tenderness to the strained marriage dynamic with which Scott Broker opens his understated debut novel, The Disappointment. "No mother.... Remember?" Jack gently admonishes his husband, Randy, who is situating his recently deceased mom's urn into a carry-on bag for their upcoming getaway to the Oregon coast. After a pause pregnant with the slights and resentments accrued throughout a decade in love, Randy decides "some mother" anyway, dispensing a travel-size portion of cremains into a Ziploc baggie.
What follows is an oddball vacation whose Wes Anderson-style deadpan undercuts the slow-burning tension between the washed-up playwright and the preeminent artist who is his grieving husband. Or, as Jack calls them, "The Photographer and the Failure.... The Dream and the Disappointment." During their stay in the quaint town of Florence, their haphazard attempts to rekindle their flame are repeatedly undermined by crosstalk from a couple of bored but boisterous teens, a precocious and pessimistic young environmentalist, a presumptuous character actor, and the overbearing nudists next door, among other tremendously entertaining personalities.
Even as Jack seeks to distract Randy from his bereavement, it becomes clear that Jack's self-flagellation has been driving the wedge between them much longer. "He was always going to be unhappy," Randy observes, "I don't know if anything can give Jack what he needs." Their storms gather and dissipate with the same unpredictability as weather patterns in the Pacific Northwest, precipitating most often from their beautiful but futile desires to cure each other's incurable pains. The Disappointment is a bravura tragicomedy if ever there was one. --Dave Wheeler, senior editor, Shelf Awareness