You're sad, aren't you? You wish you could just curl up away from the world and read a good book, don't you? So does Ray, the main character in Jason Porter's Why Are You So Sad?, a silly yet ultimately poignant novel about what makes people tick and what gets us all through our days.
Porter tells the tale of Raymond Champs, an illustrator of assembly magazines for a home furnishings company who notices he's not happy in his life. His friends aren't, either. In fact, the more he thinks about it, the world seems pretty glum. What's gone wrong? Is it because of a virus? Worse? Maybe it's mosquitos. Raymond needs data, so he sends out anonymous surveys to his coworkers ("Are you where you want to be? Do you believe in life after death? Is today better than yesterday?"). The more obsessed he becomes with finding answers, the more he tries to make the world a better and happier place, the more those who know him best think he might be going nuts. Or are they the ones who are nuts?
It's okay to call Porter's book Shteyngartian (in fact, you'll find a Gary Shyteyngart blurb on the back cover). The novel is current. The novel is perceptive. The novel is off-kilter, like George Saunders is off-kilter, or Douglas Coupland. The only people who will be depressed are those who find themselves on the last page of Porter's novel and realize there's nothing more to read. --Jonathan Shipley, freelance writer