IT’S HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME

A debut novel in which Generation Y attempts to outdo its predecessor in terms of vapid ambition. Life is like a game—that’s what we learn in chapters named for boardgames as varied as chess and Battleship. Jack is your average twentysomething working as an ad rep, but he has connections to a seamy underworld in the form of Sammy, local restaurateur/Mafia figure, and of his father, an inveterate gambler. Then Jack meets Hope, a new breed of yuppie. What they have in common is recent deaths: Jack’s lost a friend, Hope’s lost her father. For a while it all seems like a simple story of young love, but when Jack’s ex-girlfriend resurfaces, he goes ahead and makes out with her because everyone under 30 knows it’s not really cheating unless you actually have “sex,” whatever that is. This precedent inaugurates additional infidelities, including with Meredith, a 40-year-old encountered at an aerobics class. Of course, Jack’s hot, Hope’s hot, and even Meredith’s hot. Hope and Jack get married anyway, but it turns out Hope has hitched with Jack only because, according to her family’s financial arrangements, she gets a bunch of dough when she gets married. Hope then decides to get pregnant, but promptly aborts the child by taking a large quantity of aspirin. By then, the story has begun to darken: Jack’s gambler father is stalking him, and the mob may be involved. Even so, when the narrative begins to change gears it feels accidental and indecisive rather than tactical.

Additional ado about absolutely nothing.