Next

On a sweltering spring day in Austin, Texas, Kevin Quinn spends several hours exploring the city while waiting to go to a job interview downtown. He has just arrived from Ann Arbor, where he is a small-time academic editor, and a big-time commitment-phobe with women. He is thinking of leaving his latest girlfriend, Stella, but he hasn't even told her about the interview. Over the course of the day, the reader will be thrust into the poignant loves that Kevin has left behind in the wake of the last twenty-five years. Kevin, at 50, is used to attracting younger women, and having imagined sexual encounters, but he knows his number is up soon. His enlarged prostate and whisker-sprouting ears are a sign of the vicissitudes of middle-age. But he continues to pamper his inner adolescent, and ill-advisedly follows a comely twenty-year-old woman from the plane and attempts to keep her at close range. Perspiration accumulates on his brow and under his arms, and he makes a pretty ragged mess of his suit as he proceeds to have some risible misadventures over at the hike-and-bike trail. As an Austin resident, I was thrilled to read such adroit descriptions of local landmarks. I don't think I can ever look at the wide bleached sky or view the Austin skylight the same ever again. Hynes' descriptions venture into the hyperreal, and he refers to the "Longhorn Tower" where he has his interview as Barad-dur, right out of the Tolkien universe. Austin occasionally lifts to fantasy heights in Hynes' literary universe. Hynes writes with dazzling and savvy prose and has a keen eye for the details of human behavior and countenance. He described a moment dancing with a woman he loved-- "She was always watching you like she was right on the cusp of derision. But in a good way..." Kevin's vulnerability is both hilarious and heartbreaking, and his ability to acknowledge his limitations mitigates the blustery and bloated ego that keeps him at arm's length in relationships. This darkly comic story of a man's confrontation with his moral ambiguity is biting and marvelously warped, absurd and surreal. The author structured juxtapositions between past and present with a split-second precision that fairly teeters and often had me laughing out loud. One moment he would be with Stella in an Ann Arbor food market, and the next sentence or paragraph, he would be chasing a woman at a same-named market in Austin. His scenes are elaborately detailed with spot-on timing. The results are uncanny and ripe with an ominously comic gusto. This is an author who knows how to blend highbrow, lowbrow and pop culture to create a frenzied portrait of a desperate and appalling man that you nevertheless root for and empathize with--a lecherous loser who keeps searching, who never gives up, who strives for a tattered integrity. He knows his fatal flaws, his salacious impetuosity, his lack of engagement with the future. In a particularly revealing scene in a Mexican restaurant, he sha

James Hynes' "Next" has found itself on my bookshelf alongside some of my favorite middle-age introspective novels (e.g., Richard Ford's Bascombe novels, John Updike's Rabbit novels). Hynes' Kevin Quinn is an everyman for the post-911 era. "Next" is a thoughtful, downright hilarious, and beautifully written novel. This isn't exaggeration folks, this is a great book. The plot is pretty easy to summarize--Hynes gives us eight consecutive hours in the life of Kevin Quinn. Quinn is a 50-something University of Michigan employee (an editor of some kind) who flies from Ann Arbor to Austin for a job interview. Quinn is in the midst of an unsteady relationship with a younger woman (not his first) and he embarks on an unannounced trip south to interview for a job he's not even certain he wants. Sure, call it a mid-life crisis. It's post-911 and in this novel the U.S. is under occasional attack from terrorists (not unlike 2010, but more rampant). Kevin's worried about the safety of his air travel and is somewhat uncertain as to his motivation to go for the interview in the first place. The reader is treated to Kevin's repeated commentary on those he interacts with during his flight and time in Austin prior to his job interview (particularly the women he encounters/observes). This commentary is often amusing and brilliantly rendered in the poetic and observant writing of Hynes. I found myself both laughing out loud and reciting multiple sentences to those I tried to push this book upon. Kevin arrives in Austin too early for his interview so he basically spends the day wasting time at coffee shops, in a park, at a restaurant, and shopping. This never gets boring because Hynes continually puts the amusing and introspective observations of Quinn on page after page. Eventually--and it's not a tiresome, but an entertaining journey--Quinn gets to interview time. I won't discuss the denouement of this fine novel as I don't want to risk a spoiler. The book ends and the reader will be glad to have spent eight hours with Hynes' Quinn. This is a great and moving and humorous and thoughtful novel and very highly recommended.

This is a book that knows what it's doing -- even though neither you nor the protagonist will get a hint of what it is doing until the climactic last 50 pages . And even if you THINK you know what it's doing, you don't. But you WILL be grateful. Easily one of the best pieces of American fiction I have read in a long, long time. So the NEXT thing you should do is buy this book. And the next thing you should do after that is read this book. The rest is up to you.

James Hynes -- one of the most mordantly funny and original writers today -- is not widely known, and more's the pity. In NEXT, arguably his finest novel, he masterfully captures the post 9/11 world through the prism of an anti-hero in the midst of a midlife crisis. Kevin Quinn, a liberal and self-absorbed Ann Arbor editor who is a classic textbook case of arrested development, lands in Austin, Texas to interview for a new job. Against the backdrop of a world that's still quaking from the terror assaults, his own life is shaky: his job is stullifying, his much younger girlfriend is clamoring for a baby, and he's been told that he "lacks tenderness and passion." The vast portion of the story takes place in just four-and-a-half hours. It's a feat that Ian McEwan was able to master in his novel SATURDAY; but it's challenging for most writers to sustain interest in such a tight timeframe. James Hynes succeeds. The city of Austin itself comes alive under the pen of Mr. Hynes; even those who have never visited will wither in the hot Texas sun, and feel the energy of the coffee shops, Mexican restaurants, health food stores, running paths and more. With hours to go before the interview, Kevin Quinn spends an unremarkable day, rather creepily following the beautiful younger Asian-American girl he sat next on the plane whom he sees as his last hope of redemption, reminiscing about his carnal relationships with ex-girlfriends, wandering in and out of stores, and admiring the incredible looks and stamina of the Austin women. His life seems vaguely pathetic; there is no woman whom he doesn't obsess about and his wandering appears aimless as he waits to interview for a job he doesn't really want in a city he doesn't want to live in. Austin feels "foreign" to him, one more example of a man who is out of place in life. Toward the end of the first part, he experiences a relatively minor fall -- tripped by a dog on an Austin bridge -- a harbinger for a much greater fall later on. He's "saved" by a Latina surgeon, who quite literally doctors to his injury, and, in ways he never did with younger girlfriend, he becomes reflective with her and with himself. Upon parting from her, he wonders: "What would I be willing to die for -- anything? Who would I be willing to die for? That's what passion does -- passion makes you stupid, passion loses you and then throws you away." Much has been made already about the last 50 pages of this book -- Part 3 -- where there's a major shift in the plot and tone and where all Kevin's musings begin to form a cohesive shape. Each reader must experience the ending for herself or himself, but suffice to say, it WILL grab you into its vortex and shake you up. It's a true example of what fine writing can do. Ultimately, Mr. Hynes suggests that it's possible to get out of self-involvement, embrace one's passion and confront what's next...and sometimes, to obtain the flash of insight to welcome it.

Brief summary, NO spoilers. (And I emphasis NO, because I think it's important to not know what happens next to fully enjoy this amazing novel.) Kevin Quinn is a 50-something year old man who has been working for years as an editor for an academic publisher at the University of Michigan. He is a childless divorcee, and is currently in an ambivalent relationship with a younger woman named Stella. Unbeknownst to everyone in his home town in Ann Arbor, Kevin takes a planned one-day trip to Austin to interview for a new job. He does this in part because he is frustrated with his life, he feels he is an underachiever, and because he misses the feelings of promise and anticipation that came with youth. In short, Kevin is suffering from a real midlife crisis. While on the plane to Texas, Kevin sits next to a pretty young Asian woman he names Joy Luck because of the book she is reading. After he lands and while waiting for his interview, Kevin spots her on the streets of Ausin and he begins a figurative and literal chase as he contemplates his life and his past relationships (and regrets), both with girlfriends and with family. Adding to Kevin's angst is the fact there there has been a new, alarming rash of terrorist bombings and attacks that have recently taken place in Europe and in the U.S. Because I don't want to give anyway any spoilers, I don't want to say much more about the plot other than this book has several twists and turns and truly shocking moments. Even if this novel may seem to be a slow-go for some of you at first, hang in there, and I dare anyone to put it down during the incredible last 50 pages. The last part of the book will have you rethinking the book as a whole. It's a remarkable look at middle-age, and how our recollections and memories of past grievances color the way we look at ourselves and our future. And throw in a lot of humor to boot. I highly recommend this book for anyone, but especially for those of us in our middle-age years and older, and of special note - for those of you familiar with Austin, Texas. There is a lot of description of that town, which would make this an additional treat for someone from there. * Wanted to add that we choice this book for our book club, and it was one of the best discussions we've ever had. Everyone seemed to have a different opinion about this book, but by the time we were done with our discussion we each had a new appreciation for it.