Boston: the not-so-distant future. Teresa has had a long history of transitory employment, but finally it seems the (fictional) internet conglomerate AllOver has offered her a steady job with their “driverless” fleet of cars (or, as they call them, “CRs”). Of course, it’s not what it seems, and she finds herself an invisible “seer” in her AllOver vehicle, witness to a whole host of human behavior when they think no one’s watching. Throughout her rides and her back-and-forth commutes, we’re given a look at her attempts at connection and establishing herself, as she now approaches middle age.

Kudos to McNeil for taking on a fascinating topic. She clearly has a lot to say about the emerging “gig” economy and the massive companies that seem to control it all. Through her MC she manages to convey that dystopian sense of loneliness and isolation for which we’re headed unless things change. Teresa’s an interesting person, a drifter of sorts, and her insecurity serves as a good launching pad for some strong ideas. She and characters around her seem to reject the traditional status symbols of wealth and achievement as benchmarks of success. McNeil’s prose is journalistic but sharp, and she’s good with the occasional metaphor: Teresa’s a swimmer, so “Lap 29” means her 29th year of living and what she was doing at the time. There’s a shocking climax I didn’t see coming, and it livens up the story significantly.

From the beginning, I identified this novel as “high concept.” McNeil employs something of a third-person stream of consciousness style, which means a very non-linear plot and a fluid timeline. Flashbacks abound, sometimes just as I was concentrating on an interesting anecdote. That made the brilliant ideas she proposes hard for me to follow. One character begins to discuss college admissions, for example, and I had a hard time seeing how that fit with the other concepts. Before I could figure it out, we were onto something else. Also, I had a hard time visualizing things, most notably the “nest” in which the AllOver seers “drive” the CRs.

I also found the character relationships odd. There seems to be an affection between Teresa and coworker Al Jin, but he vanishes twice, and she gives him not another thought. Teresa (McNeil) also has a strange way of referring to other characters: “Blue Jeans” and “She Who Gives No F*cks” seem more appropriate for a humor novel. Some characters come out of nowhere with no description, and it takes a switchback to grasp the image. I also might have d a bit more from her relationship with Sinisa, as it felt unfinished.

Overall, Wrong Way uses an unorthodox storytelling style, but it’s a bold effort, an insightful look at labor relations in the coming world. Readers interested in economics, technology, and even politics will take an interest.

Thank you to the publisher for my ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Wrong Way by Joane McNeil gets released via Farrar, Straus, and Giroux November 14, 2023.arc21 s Denise Ruttan212 11

This book won’t be for everyone but it really was the book for me. So often I read books by young MFA grads that glorify or objectify poverty in beautiful sentences and you can just tell they’ve not lived it. I think it helps that the author is a journalist who has intimate knowledge of these issues from talking to the people who have lived this life and covering the social impacts of technology and AI.

It’s very slow paced and not much happens in the story but it’s literary in its deep interiority and exploration of back story, which I appreciated. This is the kind of book that inspires me to write because the attention to craft is so good.

Teresa is stuck in a dead-end life where she takes a series of odd, underpaid jobs in the gig economy. She lands her best job yet for a fintech company that produces driverless cars - or at least, they claim to be driverless, but they are really piloted by a human driver in an extremely uncomfortable portal, a drone. But it pays better than any of her other jobs and she finally has financial security.

The social commentary in this book was just wonderful. It really digs deep into the psyche and motivations of gig economy workers, AI and the future of labor. Plus the prose was beautiful and Teresa was a fascinating, complex character, if a bit maddening at times.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.13 s Wendy LiuAuthor 1 book508 Read

i used to want self-driving cars but now that i’m older and wiser, all i want is better public transitfiction silicon-valley-etc9 s1 comment Joanne McNeilAuthor 5 books63 Read

A considered review of the novel in the New Yorker:
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-...

After reading the novel (or before), I recommend listening to my interview with Tech Won't Save Us https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...

and This Machine Kills https://podcasts.apple.com/sv/podcast...5 s Sammi Cheung55

I spent the entire book waiting for the meat of the story to begin until I realized I finished it. The book is basically just all the exposition, though not unenjoyable, with some pleasant scenes of gig work and rumination on technology. I d this quote in the new yorker article about the book: “everything is wrapped in an air of mournful belatedness, the literary equivalent less of a sci-fi hellscape than of an especially gray day in Boston.” A little humdrum, but a nice read! (and I d the extremely Boston suburb core mentions porter square books and framingham commuter rail and the star market above the highway that I drive under every time I go into Boston)4 s Erin Crane814 6

Thrilled to get this ARC from FSG as some of my favorite weirdo novels are from them (Annihilation, The Insatiable Volt Sisters, The Rain Heron). Sadly, I didn’t love this one, but I very much appreciate what it was doing.

This is the story of Teresa, a struggling middle-aged woman (yay! For once!) living with her mom. She has a new job as a driver for this massive corporation, and ethical murkiness ensues. She also reflects on past jobs and past relationships.

I do love the wave of anti-capitalist worker stories I’m seeing. It’s commentary that I eat up, so I was glad to have found another one in Wrong Way.

The first part of the book was the best for me. Teresa’s training felt so dystopian and bizarre, and I was full of dread waiting for the reveal of what she’d actually be doing. Once I got there I was horrified. It’s so demeaning and exploitative.

I also d the questions the book brought up about Teresa’s responsibility or not for what happens in the vehicle. She’s not prepared at all for those situations by her employer and struggles to figure out how to report, which is very believable.

The tone of the story reminded me of something The Lobster in that it’s very subdued. The intensity is dialed way down. It’s very consistent throughout, and I could get along with it, but it’s definitely a *choice* and not all readers will be on board.

I had a few problems that kept me from rating the book higher. One is that I did not know what to picture. I didn’t understand exactly how the nest worked or how everything was positioned. I don’t know if a diagram is appropriate to add, but I felt I needed one.
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