In New Jersey in 2000, Tony Mazza (like matzah, only not, ha ha) stumbles out of a courtroom, wondering where he\u2019s gone wrong in his life, and his narrative provides a thousand answers ranging from funny to sad. He relates his life in reverse: 2000 becomes 1994, then 1991 and so on, going back to his birth, which Mom fills him in on. Tony can\u2019t keep even an entry-level job, as reporting to work on time at IHOP is a nagging issue. Surrounded by bad influences like his father and his lifelong friend Sandy Quade, he screws up by the numbers but only blames himself: \u201cWhere did I go wrong?\u201d he asks himself over and over. In 1990, \u201cthe unemployment rate\u2019s low enough for you to step over,\u201d and yet he\u2019s \u201cthirty-one, divorced and jobless.\u201d Loser isn\u2019t tattooed on his forehead, although readers may wonder why not. Along the way, he peppers his narrative with lame jokes. \u201cI know a bunch of jokes about being unemployed. But none of them work. Ha ha ha.\u201d At times it feels like Tony has memorized his childhood joke book and wants to share every damned gag. (One or two fewer groaners would\u2019ve been nice.) But then lines like this more than compensate: \u201cThat voice, sweet with an edge, is like orange juice left out too long.\u201d Typical Tony: He makes a date with a girl and then forgets to show up. In high school he\u2019s casual about punctuality, arriving at \u201cMs. Rosen\u2019s Western Civ. class in time to be fifteen minutes late.\u201d He could be a decent student\u2014for example, his comments in English class about Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye are perceptive: \u201cIt\u2019s what Salinger thinks a rebel kid should be.\u201d And yet a quiet tragedy lurks in the background of the Mazza family\u2019s lives. Tony\u2019s younger sister, Angela, has been missing for two decades, and all hope of finding her is lost. When the story circles back to 2000 no one is looking for her anymore, and Tony faces possible jail time on a low-level drug charge. One thread leads to a shock, the other to a glimmer of hope.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In New Jersey in 2000, Tony Mazza (like matzah, only not, ha ha) stumbles out of a courtroom, wondering where he\u2019s gone wrong in his life, and his narrative provides a thousand answers ranging from funny to sad. He relates his life in reverse: 2000 becomes 1994, then 1991 and so on, going back to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2792"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}