HEARTBREAK EPIPHANIES AND JUSTIFIED LUST

Kruxhammer’s first novel involves two very different men named John whose fates collide in Las Vegas.

At the outset, John Morgan and John Palmer don’t have a lot in common. Palmer is an only child from a wealthy family in California who dropped out of college after developing a disturbing obsession with his female therapist. He spent time in the Belinbreeze Psychiatric Hospital, where he passed many an hour scrawling in a notebook, which contains thoughts such as, “It’s a puzzling life in a preposterous world.” After his parents die in a car crash, he inherits their fortune and leaves the psychiatric hospital with roughly $12 million and vague ideas about taking up writing. John Morgan grew up in Buffalo, New York, and graduated from college with a degree in business, and like Palmer, also has ambitions to write. Morgan’s adult life entails a dicey divorce and copious amounts of beer: “Divorce taught Morgan things aren’t as bad as they seem, they’re worse.” Still, the two Johns must carry on in a world of romantic difficulties. The lives of these men generate a great deal of possibilities. How does one live while flush with cash and desperate for companionship, and how does someone pick up their life (or fail to) after a disastrous marriage? As the men’s destinies careen toward each other—both develop a penchant for Las Vegas—the main question seems to be whether each will keep heart and soul together. Morgan, for instance, intriguingly reflects on his interest in philosophy and how “teachings of famous thinkers made life more satisfying, but also more difficult.” Some aspects of the novel prove tedious, though, such as an early account of Morgan's attempt to get by in Vegas after college, which doesn’t amount to much. Overall, though, readers will be interested to find out what, if anything, these men learn about themselves along the way.

An in-depth fictional study of two characters’ struggle to fit into a daunting world.