Want Not Hardcover – November 5, 2013

On page 17, I was absolutely bowled over by the paragraph that began, "He hadn't intended a late night..." It resonated so strongly because all of us have been in the same situation. The character speaking is Elwin and the plight of his life is gripping and soon interlocked with an amazing cast of rich personalities. All of them at multiple but different times ask, "How did I end up here?" That question is certainly the theme of the novel. Author Miles is undeniably an accomplished observer of human behaviour and relationships. Here are a few of my favourite musings...- "The great sin of parenting, Sara felt, was letting your children aim too low. Allow them to settle, and that's just what they'd do. Loose expectations were like junk food; kids just gorged themselves."- "What we leave behind, he'd come to believe, is mere simulacra, the invented residue of our public selves."- "How obscene and astonishing it was, she thought, that amidst all this digital plenty, there could still be nothing."He not only observes people but the things we have created. Take this home description as an example, "It was a three-story Colonial, circa 1890, majestic and maybe even ostentatious when it was built having been divided and subdivided over the years, overhauled and under hauled, and modernized and plasticized, its honey-colored plank floors layered and relayered with linoleum sheathing, its pineboard exterior inhumed with aluminum cladding..." That house is a metaphor for how we coat ourselves in protective layers and various guises as we make our way through life.Where professional reviewers have used the word "corrosive" to describe the book I see it as insightful satire that leans towards the darker corners of life. In fact, no one is happy in this book so it was definitely off-putting. It lacked the hope found in Charles Dickens or the sweetness of Richard Russo both whose works remind of the scale Miles has attempted in Want Not. I was definitely impressed but not uplifted and ultimately the novel frustrates and trails off collapsing to a degree because of its weight and length.

Want Not did something very few works of fiction do successfully: couched strong moral messaging in the guise of a compelling story peopled with complicated characters. In this case, the moral messaging was a call-to-action to watch what we consume, and what we waste. The book was a focused meditation on how and why we acquire and what we throw away.Sounds like some boring hippie crap, right?But it’s not, because the characters are so dimensional, either lovable in their lovable-ness (Elwin, the overweight linguistics professor pining for the wife who abruptly left him) or compelling in the particular composition of their obvious flaws (Matty, the ex-con who literally steals a bottle of whiskey from a dead woman’s hand), that the dogma is almost buried in the flow of the story, which sparkles with humor and carries unexpected twists and moments of compassion.Want Not did for me what I believe it was meant to do: made me think about what, how, and why I consume, made me question the necessity of consistent acquisition, and re-jiggered my relationship to trash.Have I dropped out of commercial society and adopted Micah and Tal’s squatting, dumpster-diving, romantic-squalor lifestyle? Hell no. But since reading it, I do take an extra sniff before tossing expired food, and pause an extra moment to ask myself “do I really need this?” before hitting the “Buy Now” button.What I Would Have Done DifferentlyThis book received criticism for dragging and being too long. I respectfully disagree. I wanted more, and I didn’t think a single word was wasted.(This review originally appeared on my blog,[...].)

I was somewhat skeptical when I saw that Jonathan Miles had a new book that made it to the NY Times Notable Books of 2013 list. I really did not enjoy his first book--"Dear American Airlines." I found it to be a dull read. But after having two of my closest reader friends tell me this was an excellent book, I decided to read it and I am super happy I did as it was excellent! Really excellent. A totally different kind of book and kudos to Jonathan Miles for conceiving of something this good. The book is really 3 stories in one that are not connected in any way other than they all address the issue of there being excess in the world in one way, shape, or form. All 3 families are in NY. The first is a man and woman named Talmadge and Mica. They live by dumpster diving and taking unused stuff to incorporate into their lives. We also meet Elwin who is a linguistics professor who slowly gets rid of almost everything he owns as in parallel he consults on a project having to do with disposing waste. Finally, we meet Sara who is a mother who lost her husband in 9/11. She has a daughter Alexis who is a typical rebellious daughter who comes to terms with Sara's partner Dave--both of whom are into soft drugs. Eventually Alexis goes to college and ends up meeting Mica in a roundabout way. A very good book that moves fast and is exciting and certainly different.

This is an excellent book, and was delivered swiftly