The social network of Fiona Maazel's l Woke Up Lonely isn't a virtual thumbs up/thumbs down world of "friends," "followers" and "shares." Instead, it's a tangible contemporary organization of regional "packs" where the isolated gather to hear inspirational talks, meet forlorn fellows and get practical pointers on overcoming loneliness.
The Helix is a social organization led by the charismatic Thurlow Dan, himself a victim of solitude after his wife and daughter left him. Counseling failed him: "A shrink at SUNY told me I should believe in myself. And I did. I believed I was stupid and evil and without hope." So he haphazardly built a cult-like empire by seeking out companionship and building relationships a few people at a time, a fictional composite of organizations as diverse as AA, Scientology, Promise Keepers and even the Sweet Potato Queens. When Kim Jong-Il makes a North Korean financial contribution to Helix to help win him "friends" in the West, the already suspicious feds go DEFCON and set up a high-priority covert infiltration operation to unseat Dan and break up the Helix.
It's not just Maazel's off-the-wall plot that makes this novel special; there's also her on-the-money descriptions of the Helix members, its leadership sycophants and the reluctant federal undercover agents assigned to monitor them. Maazel's imaginative sense of the absurd is well-balanced by her sensitivity to the real isolation that characterizes so many in 21st-century America. Social media's got nothing on an ambitious novel like this. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.