cover image Vincent and Alice and Alice

Vincent and Alice and Alice

Shane Jones. Tyrant, $16.95 trade paper (230p) ISBN 978-0-9992186-7-9

The narrator of Jones’s uneven novel (after Crystal Eaters), an everyman named Vincent, is pushing 40 and nine years into a mind-numbing state job that will yield an exceptional retirement package as long as he stays for 30 years. He’s recently divorced from his wife, Alice, an idealistic nonprofit worker who could no longer stand the banalities of their life together, no matter that Vincent is still in love with her. Unable to be fully present at work in the aftermath of the divorce, Vincent enters the mysterious Patrol for Everyday Repetition (PER) program, led by the enigmatic Dorian Blood. PER promises a way for Vincent “to live a fulfilling existence while being a productive worker.” In other words, as Vincent embraces the monotony of capitalism, he will be rewarded by a tangible manifestation of his ideal life, which will eventually “overlap then blanket [his] reality.” For Vincent, all that means is having Alice back. Though PER initially seems to work, reality keeps intruding on Vincent’s life: he loses his dog, his only friend goes missing, and finally the real Alice reappears. Jones is an imaginative writer, capable of astute observations about capitalism and desire, but the execution never quite lives up to the ambition of the concept. This is an entertaining effort, but it may leave some readers unsatisfied. (July)