In The Great World (Small)

The narrator is unapologetic, rude, lazy, occasionally noble, generally a coward, and always his own worst enemy. He’s somehow managed to create a comfortable – if shaky – bubble of comfort in Phoenix after being displaced by Hurricane Katrina. He lives in a cheap motel; he hangs out at the MTP Sports Bar and Grill – when he has money – and drinks in his room when he doesn’t. He scrapes by on day labor and a short-term work ethic. He’s got no interest in regular work, going back to college, doing anything, or maintaining a relationship.

Through him we meet other people who are just as broken, though less aware of their situation, and we view the world the narrator lives in: a post 9/11 two-dimensional world without morality or ethics, where people get screwed over whether they do the right thing or not; a world of drug dealers, abused wives, manipulated boy toys, bookies, hookers, crooked cops, and a cocaine-addled bar owner. All of them are, like the narrator, just looking for some kind of shaky comfort in the world; and, just like the narrator, unable to find it.

As the story progresses, the narrator mingles bits of his own life – a Midwestern semi-religious upbringing, the death of his father, a failed early marriage, a deserted college career – in with the sometimes unflattering descriptions of the people around him. And finally, as the shaky world he’s created around himself starts to fall apart – the day jobs run out, the bar is closing, the motel is shut down so that the local university can build a parking garage – he finds himself forced to do the one thing he never really likes to do: make a decision about what to do next.