Carousel Court, Joe McGinniss Jr.'s second novel (after The Delivery Man), is the story of a young Boston family's search for the California dream at just the wrong time. Nick and Phoebe Maguire pack up their two-year-old son, Jackson, and meager belongings to drive their Subaru cross-country for Nick's new job with a boutique L.A. film production company. With their marriage on shaky ground after her affair with the uber-rich boss at her previous job, and a car accident that nearly killed Jackson, Nick and Phoebe have a plan: "secure an investment property to upgrade, flip for enough profit to secure their future." Acting quickly, they buy a ranch house on the suburban cul-de-sac Carousel Court, and do the whole California remodel thing. Then comes the Great Recession.
McGinniss writes with a keen feel for the contemporary zeitgeist, but he also might justly lay claim to being the ascending fictional Prince of Darkness. The Delivery Man was about a dangerous teen prostitution ring set amid the glitter of Sin City--a sort of Less Than Zero meets Leaving Las Vegas. His characters in Carousel Court weather broken personal connections, social unrest and financial desperation. Their world is sadly a modern one with which readers are all too familiar--talking via text, hustling to make ends meet, dodging extremes of weather, looking for that lost American Dream. Yet McGinniss opens a window of hope as Nick and Phoebe weather the mess they make of their lives and put their faith in Jackson. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.