Well

By Matthew McIntosh and Matthew McIntosh

Book Overview

Critically acclaimed Well marks the astonishing debut of an author with a singular and unflinching voice and vision. Set primarily among the working-class of a Seattle suburb called Federal Way, this highly original novel-told in the form of interlinked short stories- extols the lives of a large cast of characters lost in various modes of darkness and despair. Whether struggling to come together or desperately alone, they grapple with dark compulsions and heart-rending afflictions. As if trapped at the bottom of a well, they search for relief, for a vehicle into the light they know is up and outside.
They search in sex, in drugs and violence, and in visions of Apocalypse and Creation, dreams of angels and killers and local sports championships. Compact, finely wrought, powerfully charged, Well ultimately rises toward the light, in a finale which echoes with the exhilarating human capacity for hope. The result is a mesmerizing tour de force that will establish Matthew McIntosh as a bold and progressive new voice of American fiction.
Stories:
BURLESQUE
Snapshots of various troubled couples on the day that the Seattle SuperSonics lose their chance at advancing to the NBA finals. Len and Adda are fighting- Len is in love with Adda (she is "the girl he wanted") but she is torn, and is leaving the next day to spend a week with her fiancee to make sure that breaking up with him is the right thing. Len becomes jealously enraged when he finds out Adda and her fiancee will be sleeping in the same bed, begging her not to touch the man.
Nate and Sammie are also fighting: Sammie insists that a certain girl who is trying to convert Nate stop calling their house. Nate gets tired of Sammie's hysteria and beats her, only to become terrified at what he has done.
A first person narrator recalls his rather pathetic adventures with prostitutes in Thailand, where he made big money at an English language newspaper and lived like a king. He brought a woman over who now resents him for it, and they have a staid marriage while he continues to dream over prostitutes.
Raymond and his wife are at the SuperSonics game and get in a fight when Ray's wife sees he is ogling cheerleaders through his binoculars. He misses it when the team loses at the buzzer.
The SuperSonics janitor comes home to his wife, who is pregnant. He masturbates as he recalls the time he slipped out to watch a burlesque show at the strip joint across the street.

MODERN COLOR / MODERN LOVE
II. Shelly is a Korean 16-year-old boarding school student who likes having sex with strangers in bars and doing crystal meth. She falls a sleep and crashes her car through a fence, causing her mother to cry and call her "A Real American Whore" when she picks her up in prison. She meets an older man who takes her in but finally gets sick of giving her money to drink and sends her home. When her mother isn't home, she goes to the nearest bar.
III. A phone sex patron can't make up his mind what he wants his fantasy to be and the story concludes: "Do you realize what this is costing?"
IV. The story of Davin, a warehouse worker, and Sarah, who are in a band together. Davin is loving and committed to Sarah but Sarah doesn't see a future with him. She gets pregnant and they grow distant. One day Davin gets in a fight with a co-worker and is paralyzed on his left side after being hit in the skull. Sarah takes care of him in the hospital, but when he returns home he begins drinking. One night he picks the 2-year-old up while drunk and Sarah becomes hysterical when the child begins crying. He beats Sarah and is issued a restraining order. Sarah moves out and eventually begins dating a construction worker she does not really love.

CHICKEN
A group of guys gets into a game of chicken with a car containing a guy and a bunch of girls. When the guys cut the girls off suddenly, the driver of the latter car approaches the guys in an insane rage and finally hits

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802141439
• ISBN13: 9780802141439
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Modern color / modern love

A rare contemporary novel that speaks to a contemporary reader on a profoundly human level, without formulaic politics, or formulaic psychology, or condescension, or cuteness, or formulaic humanity, but with the voice of an author who, like a good doctor, cares genuinely about some very sick patients, his characters, not even despite but because of their flaws. Compared to Selby and Carver by some, this may be especially so to the extent that each of them shows traces of Dubliners, as McIntosh distinguishes himself with characters that could really be anyone at all, and are, though of a very particular time and place. Others have synopsized the plot and style, so there is no need to repeat. Suffice to say, the author manifests a sophistication and subtlety of human study well beyond his young years, and this reader has not been as deeply touched by contemporary fiction in a long time, when contemporary meant something else entirely.

People Collage

Well done, McIntosh. I've never been to Seattle, or kept tropical fish, or got a girl pregnant, or been kept hostage by a gun-man but having read "Well," I've a pretty good idea of what all that feels like. McIntosh's method of layering personalities and events one over the other gave me the same delight I get from stripping layers of wallpaper from old walls - I am fascinated by all the different designs and choices people have made. "Well" is like that. It's non-linear, character-driven but with plots forced into small spaces like little fingers in wall-sockets. I loved it. http://www.bagoodjohn.blogspot.com

"Well" done

This book is a lot of things. It's depressing, it's sad and it's dark. It's funny, it's real and it's honest. And most of all, it's very hard to put down. Matthew McIntosh is a 26 year old son of a preacher who spent time in London and California before landing in a little suburb of Seattle called Federal Way, the setting for the book. The book follows the lives and relationships of many people who are lost, despondent, disturbed, and struggling to just get through one more day. This is a brutally frank snapshot of people that most of us of hope we never meet and pray we never become. We see them on street corners, in alleys, in parks and sometimes right next door, though we pretend to not notice and hope to God they don't notice us. McIntosh's writing style is unconventional and compelling at the same time. It is refreshingly (and shockingly) different.

Better than good

Like Carver? Denis Johnson? Well even if you don't you should give this innovative and masterful book a try. McIntosh weaves together the lives of his suburbanite characters into a picture of modern life unlike any yet presented. His voice is incredibly original and is the true genius behind the book but what's remarkable for a first novel is that this voice really has something to say.

Something of a Masterpiece

"Well" is a hard-earned marvel, and Matt McIntosh is a nothing less than a prodigy. His book focuses on a tapestry of broken lives in Federal Way, Washington, outside of Seattle, drawn together by the common ailments of discontentment, disillusionment, and a yearning for some small redemption. The chapter (or story) "Fishboy," about a young man suffering from the break-up of his family, has a raw, wrenching power like something I've rarely encountered in contemporary fiction, somewhat like the stories in Denis Johnson's "Jesus' Son," but wholly Matt McIntosh's, wholly unique. His work has a kind of poetic integrity that signals a rare talent, a new voice.