WANT NOT by Jonathan Miles (Houghton Mifflin)
Waste not, Want not: that’s the idiom that the title of Jonathan Miles new novel, Want Not, comes from. It’s about the psychology of waste. It can be human, toxic, food, debt and sickness. Jonathan Miles tells the story through three narratives: a young freegan couple Talmadge and Micah, who met at Burning Man. They are squatters who live off of things they find in dumpsters. While Talmadge comes from money, Micah, grew up poor in Appalachians and had to scrounge for food to survive.
The second story is about Elwin Cross Jr., a professor of applied linguistics, who is morbidly obese and his wife has just left him. He has a job in New Mexico where he has to create a warning sign that will last generations to let people know there is an underground crypt where radioactive waste will be stored.
The third narrative is about Sarah, Dave, and Alexis. Sarah has lost her bond broker husband on 9/11. Since then she has married Dave, a cruel debt collector who makes a lot of money forcing people to pay unnecessary credit card debt. Alexis is Sarah’s daughter from her first marriage.
It’s a funny novel that is also dark just like his brilliant debut novel, Dear American Airlines, and reminds me of another literary Jonathan: Mr. Franzen. It’s a book that will make you think about waste and being wasteful. Highly recommended.
