Shelf Space - Diary of the disgruntled
Iain Levison doesn’t mind being called bitter.
Last spring, the author saw a flurry of press over his debut, A Working Stiff’s Manifesto, a non-fiction diatribe on losing 42 jobs in 10 years. This month Soho Press publishes Levison’s Since the Layoffs, a humorous, hard-boiled novel following a former factory worker turned hit man. And yes, the unemployment theme is intentional.
“For one thing, I sort of am bitter,” Levison says. “I’ve been working in this economy for about 15 years now, and I don’t feel it has a lot to offer. So even if I’m not bitter, I’m definitely cynical.”
In Since the Layoffs, Jake Skowran finds himself stripped of his job and his dignity, working nights at a convenience store. Soon enough he’s making lists of folks who need to be shot in the face, and agrees to knock off his bookie’s wife to erase an enormous gambling debt.
The 39-year-old Pennsylvania author admits he sees a lot of himself in the protagonist — “pretty much every thing except for the killing part,” he says. He calls the new book a revenge fantasy of sorts: “I thought, what if a worker, somebody who puts his life into his job, treated society the way the modern economy treats the workers?” When a livelihood is lost, morality soon follows, or so the author suggests.
Levison captures the grumbling venom of those disenfranchised by the Bush economy with the authority of someone who’s been there and collected unemployment checks himself. Even if his vitriol does become somewhat repetitive, it’s always engaging.
Levison cranked out both books in less than a year each and has another novel in the works. Meanwhile, the author is still a working stiff himself, holding down a restaurant job on the side.
“Hopefully there will be no more of that, once I finish this book tour,” he says.
Iain Levison appears May 5 at 7 p.m. at Chapter 11 Discount Books, Emory Commons, 2091 N. Decatur Road. 404-325-1505. www.chapter11books.com.
Shelf Space is a weekly column on books and Atlanta’s literary scene.