Anticipated Results

In this collection of linked short stories set in Vancouver, Canadian author Bolen (Kaspoit!) depicts the quiet despair of a group of aging, underachieving male baby boomers, who feed off each other’s dysfunction and self-medicate with substances both legal and illegal to deaden the pain of what they haven’t become. Structured in three parts—“Problem,” “Process,” and “Outcome”—the stories introduce the group of men, who met in a community college English class in 1976: Paul, a cab driver; Nick, an artist; Bill, a cynic; and Gus, an all-around sad sack.Rather than relying on cataclysmic events, Bolen shows his characters struggling through the indignities of everyday life: car accidents, showing up stoned to a dinner party, trying to stage an intervention for an alcoholic friend. While transitions between points of view prove jarring, Bolen’s spare prose and empathy for his characters make for a compelling read. (Oct.)