WHERE I WENT WRONG

A frustrated young man mulls his many mistakes.

In New Jersey in 2000, Tony Mazza (like matzah, only not, ha ha) stumbles out of a courtroom, wondering where he’s gone wrong in his life, and his narrative provides a thousand answers ranging from funny to sad. He relates his life in reverse: 2000 becomes 1994, then 1991 and so on, going back to his birth, which Mom fills him in on. Tony can’t keep even an entry-level job, as reporting to work on time at IHOP is a nagging issue. Surrounded by bad influences like his father and his lifelong friend Sandy Quade, he screws up by the numbers but only blames himself: “Where did I go wrong?” he asks himself over and over. In 1990, “the unemployment rate’s low enough for you to step over,” and yet he’s “thirty-one, divorced and jobless.” Loser isn’t tattooed on his forehead, although readers may wonder why not. Along the way, he peppers his narrative with lame jokes. “I know a bunch of jokes about being unemployed. But none of them work. Ha ha ha.” At times it feels like Tony has memorized his childhood joke book and wants to share every damned gag. (One or two fewer groaners would’ve been nice.) But then lines like this more than compensate: “That voice, sweet with an edge, is like orange juice left out too long.” Typical Tony: He makes a date with a girl and then forgets to show up. In high school he’s casual about punctuality, arriving at “Ms. Rosen’s Western Civ. class in time to be fifteen minutes late.” He could be a decent student—for example, his comments in English class about Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye are perceptive: “It’s what Salinger thinks a rebel kid should be.” And yet a quiet tragedy lurks in the background of the Mazza family’s lives. Tony’s younger sister, Angela, has been missing for two decades, and all hope of finding her is lost. When the story circles back to 2000 no one is looking for her anymore, and Tony faces possible jail time on a low-level drug charge. One thread leads to a shock, the other to a glimmer of hope.

Clever storytelling with an over-the-top protagonist.