Wanted - (Switchgrass Books) by Joseph G Peterson (Paperback)

About the Book

Balladeer of the cityÆs broken and forgotten men, Joseph G. Peterson looks for inspiration in urban side streets and alleys, where crooked schemes are hatched, where lives end violently, and where pretty much everyone is up to no good. Depicting the lives of people who have woefully lost their way in the worldcriminals and victims, the...

Book Synopsis

Balladeer of the city's broken and forgotten men, Joseph G. Peterson looks for inspiration in urban side streets and alleys, where crooked schemes are hatched, where lives end violently, and where pretty much everyone is up to no good. Depicting the lives of people who have woefully lost their way in the world--criminals and victims, the unemployed and unemployable, the neglected and the indigent, the lonely and the alone--Peterson nonetheless brings a poet's touch to his work, which is redolent with allegory, allusion, and Nabokovian wordplay. His last novel, Beautiful Piece, garnered praise from across the literary spectrum. Enter Wanted: Elevator Man, his powerful and ambitious new novel and the story of Eliot Barnes Jr., a man at the end of his proverbial rope.

Haunted by the larger-than-life shadow of his father, a scientist who may have helped develop the atomic bomb, twenty-nine-year-old Eliot Barnes, Jr., is an apple that's fallen far from the tree. Saddled with a useless degree in literature, caged in a rundown apartment he can't afford, and embittered by his failure to live up to the future's promise, Barnes, who dreams of a corner office--an aerie roost high above the city, working with the higher-ups--begrudgingly accepts a job as an elevator man in a downtown Chicago skyscraper. Thus begins a profound but comedic meditation on failure in this life, how one comes to terms with not achieving one's dreams, the nature and origin of such dreams, and, fittingly, the meaning of the American dream itself.

As unflinching as Nelson Algren and as romantic as Saul Bellow, Peterson's novel boasts wildly surreal plot twists and a lethal wit that frequently erupts into full-on hilarity. Wanted: Elevator Man is the perfect tale for learning to cope with diminished expectations in these dark and desperate times.

Review Quotes

Life often doesn't pan out as we had hoped it would. Wanted: Elevator Man is a novel following the rut that Eliot Barnes Jr. faces in his life, having the best set up he could hope for only to be stuck without much hope and aspiration in spite of his education and roots. A story of coping with expectations proving to be a lie in one's life, Wanted: Elevator Man is a literary addition to any contemporary fiction collection, highly recommended.

-- "Midwest Book Review"

About the Author

Joseph G. Peterson works in publishing. He is the author of Inside the Whale and Beautiful Piece. He lives in Chicago with his wife and two daughters.