Big If: A Novel
Big If: A Novel by Mark Costello, published by W. W. Norton & Company on June 17, 2002, is a work of fiction that explores the complexities of modern American life. This first edition spans 315 pages and presents a narrative that intertwines humor and tension against the backdrop of a booming economy and a politically charged atmosphere. The story unfolds in winter in New Hampshire, where the vice president is campaigning for the presidency, and the Secret Service agents are on high alert.
Readers will encounter Vi Asplund, a young Secret Service agent grappling with her father’s death while reconnecting with her brother Jens, a computer genius entangled in the creation of a nihilistic video game called Big If. The novel delves into themes of affluence, anxiety, and the pervasive fantasies of violence that characterize contemporary society. Through a cast of vivid characters, Costello examines the absurd and sound strategies people employ to navigate their daily lives, offering a unique perspective on the intersection of personal and political realities.
Official synopsis Publisher
A scary, funny novel—a riff on recent history and the American obsession with assassination.
It’s winter in New Hampshire, the economy is booming, the vice president is running for president, and his Secret Service people are very, very tense.
Meet Vi Asplund, a young Secret Service agent mourning her dead father. She goes home to New Hampshire to see her brother Jens, a computer genius who just might be going mad—and is poised to make a fortune on Big If, a viciously nihilistic computer game aimed at teenagers. Vi’s America, as she sees it in the crowds, in her brother, and in her fellow agents, is affluent, anxious, and abuzz with vague fantasies of violence.
Through a gallery of vivid characters—heroic, ignoble, or desperate—Mark Costello’s hilarious novel limns the strategies, both sound and absurd, that we conjure to survive in daily life.
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