The Narcissism of Small Differences

March 2, 2020
Zadoorian (The Leisure Seeker) serves up a wry, unflinching tale of an underachieving couple in midlife crisis mode as the recession grips the industrial Midwest. Joe and Ana live in Ferndale, Mich., a mile outside Detroit, where they’ve been shacked up (but not married) for 15 years. Joe’s a freelance journalist just getting by, while Ana, once an aspiring documentary filmmaker, works in advertising and has become the breadwinner. Despite their cramped living quarters, they live in separate spheres. While Ana befriends and fantasizes over a coworker, Joe stays out late drinking and, while home, develops a heavy porn habit. After Ana catches Joe at the screen, she expresses doubts about their relationship and ongoing living situation. Things don’t get any easier at work. Ana questions how far she’s willing to stray from her progressive values to serve a Christian client, and Joe is reduced to a “telemarketing Willie Loman,” selling ads for a newspaper. Zadoorian’s comedy of contemporary manners resonates by virtue of its introspective characters and depictions of the small moments in life that, taken together, have great significance. Piquantly titled chapters (“Out Come the Freaks”) provide additional comic snap. Zadoorian’s subtle, timely story hits the mark.

April 15, 2020
Detroit hipsters hit middle-age and discover uncomfortable compromises but also new opportunities for authenticity. Ana and Joe have coasted into their forties by running on the heady fumes of Gen-X cool. He's a freelance cultural journalist, pitching underfunded magazines and drowning his sorrows in local microbrews. She has iconoclastic taste?1970s folk-rock, 1930s screwball comedies, mid-century graphic design?but somehow has ended up at the precipice of an unsettlingly traditional ad-agency career. The joys of cohabitation have dissolved into routine; their sex life has fizzled out. New opportunities?a morally challenging account for Ana, the Dollar Daily circular for Joe?break the malaise but also expose the limitations of their relationship. Zadoorian (Beautiful Music, 2018) leans heavily on brand names, music references, and gratuitous shout-outs to Detroit cultural fixtures. But his message?that as we get older, it's okay to reimagine our lives and maybe even sell out a little, as long as we stay true to our authentic selves?is earnest. And a side plot that takes Joe through some grand theaters of yesteryear, now dangerously decrepit, provides moments of genuine poignancy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)