Country: USA
Genre: Literary
Pages: 255
*CODE FOR FAILURE is not out yet, it's going to be released on March 27th. To Preorder*
I hate this job. I hate this town. I hate the stupid tourist season and the dead season, too. I hate the steady inflation of gas prices and the feeling of oil on my hands. But what else is there for me? Get another job doing the same kind of shit?
I'm always afraid to sound like a babbling fanboy whenever I review something I really liked. I'm having one of these moments right now. Three weeks ago, I didn't know who Ryan W. Bradley was. I'm sure his name doesn't sound familiar to most of you. This is about to change, believe me. CODE FOR FAILURE is Ryan W. Bradley's spectacular first novel. Not only it's a great story and a fun read, but it's also a very important piece of literature in our troubled economic times. It's a chronicle of the failure of one man, sure but it's also a testimony to the multiple failures around him. CODE FOR FAILURE is full of broken dreams, broken promises, shattered hopes and grinding routines and yet, it's a very positive novel. It's a testimony to the strength of the human soul, always looking up and aiming for better, even from the deepest abyss.
The nameless narrator works at a gas station, because it's the only job he could find. He's a college dropout without a B plan, about to get rolled over by life. Days pass by, clients start to blur together (so are his co-employees), boredom starts taking over and the job starts being an adventure for the guys who don't really care about it. They flirt with clients, dodge the "suits" ,the company executives looking to change the gas station and try to have a good time. But the narrator lives isolated in a small apartment, so the job starts spreading over every aspect of his life and he starts taking questionable decisions, out of pure existential dread. Security or happiness, comfort or fulfillment, the narrator has to juggle with those very abstract concepts who will have very concrete effect on his life.
I don't know why this hit home so hard. Maybe I had such an emotional reaction to CODE FOR FAILURE because I'm in a similar place right now. Bradley said it has a large chunk of autobiographical material in there. It might explain why it sounds so real. Anyway, the novel is presented in form of short vignettes of one or two pages, that represent a day in the narrator's life. This is brilliant in itself, because it's very deliberate. The form in itself represents boredom, like somebody crossing dates on a calendar, waiting for something to happen. Sometimes the day is eventful, sometimes not and it has only a few lines to describe it. Not only it fits the concept of CODE FOR FAILURE, but it also quickens up the reading pace and it makes it hard not to want to read that "just one more page" before closing the book.
"By the end of the day I feel pretty useless," I say. "What's the point? We get paid shit and do the same thing every day. And what's more whether we want to be or not, we're a part of an industry that is systematically destroying our economy and environment. We're the smallest, poorest cogs in a very evil machine."
Craig squirts Windex on the counter and wipes it dry. "It's a job," he says. "Jobs aren't supposed to be fulfilling. That's just a stupid psychological term. You're an idealistic kid and I hate to ruin life for you, but there's no meaning. You work to pay bills. That's all."
Craig squirts Windex on the counter and wipes it dry. "It's a job," he says. "Jobs aren't supposed to be fulfilling. That's just a stupid psychological term. You're an idealistic kid and I hate to ruin life for you, but there's no meaning. You work to pay bills. That's all."
Another idea Ryan W. Bradley takes swipes at in CODE FOR FAILURE, is the self-esteem movement, which wanted for every kid to live a happy, meaningful life. It's not direct, but think of his novel as a...well, a declaration of failure. Bradley's narrator is looking to live up to the concept of fulfillment, which has no clear meaning for him. He doesn't know who he is, doesn't know what he wants and torments himself with questions that have no real answer. He is soaking in reality and yet he's looking for a world built with ideas. Witnessing the promised transcendence escape the narrator's grasp whenever he tries to find a little bliss, is thoroughly tragic.
Take the Raymond Carver stories, put them in a meat grinder and pound them out into short, rugged vignettes (not unlike those of Henry Rollins) and you've got the realist, punk-rock prose of Ryan W. Bradley. CODE FOR FAILURE portrays reality in the most impressive fashion. It's a gloomy novel sure, but it also celebrates the unyielding character of humans. It's a deliberate swipe at charlatans idealists who sell happiness as a DVD Box Set or a week-end seminar. I can easily see myself going back to CODE FOR FAILURE to seek inspiration in darker times. In a decade from now, you will see young men travel with it like they did with CATCHER IN THE RYE about thirty years ago. Pick it up on launch day, you'll thank me afterwards.
FIVE STARS