Apathy and Other Small Victories

A young man indifferent about life gets caught up in a murder investigation in this debut comic novel.

“If Camus and Bukowski had written A Confederacy of Dunces and combined it with the screenplay for Office Space, it would have been this book. A triumphantly, weirdly hilarious comedy.” —Neil Pollack, author of Never Mind the Pollacks

The only thing Shane cares about is leaving. Usually on a Greyhound bus, right before his life falls apart again. Just like he planned. But this time it’s complicated: there’s a sadistic corporate climber who thinks she’s his girlfriend, a rent-subsidized affair with his landlord's wife, and the bizarrely appealing deaf assistant to Shane’s cosmically unstable dentist.

When one of the women is murdered, and Shane is the only suspect who doesn’t care enough to act like he didn’t do it, the question becomes just how he’ll clear the good name he never had and doesn’t particularly want: his own.

“The malaise of cubicle culture may be well-trodden comedic territory by now, but Neilan's debut skewers office life with a flourish for the grotesque.” —The Village Voice

“Neilan spins many sparkling comic riffs on the tawdriness and sterility of American life.” —Publishers Weekly