Former McSweeney's
online editor Shay travels in his debut novel to the now-stale heart of late-'90s political hysteria and pre-millennial angst. The "end" of the title refers to the End of the World as We Know It (TEOTWAWKI for short), the global meltdown that is to occur as a result of the unchecked Y2K computer crisis. Randall Knight, a former elementary school teacher, quits his job and tours the country as a roving puppeteer, hoping to make others believe in the impending computer-related doomsday. Shay puts the reader in the quixotic situation of rooting for a protagonist whose every action is in the service of a supremely puerile cause; as Randall crisscrosses the U.S. in search of allies, running headlong from his own problems into the maw of an imagined global catastrophe, it's hard not to feel his pain (in the words of another presence whose then-current impeachment trial haunts this book). If the book ends with more of a whimper than a bang, perhaps that is only to be expected in a novel about an impending but never-arriving tragedy. (Dec.)
