Where I Went Wrong

Galef (My Date with Neanderthal Woman) delivers an uneven comic novel about a disgraced hospital orderly trying to understand his downfall. It’s the year 2000 and narrator Tony Mazza, 41, is joyriding in a stolen ambulance. After accidentally smashing into a Porsche, he’s arrested by a cop who calls an ambulance (“Um, another ambulance,” the cop clarifies), which transports Tony back to his own ER. Tony then takes readers on a reverse tour through his life, searching for answers to a question that has long plagued him: “Where did I go wrong?” He begins with his last job as a bartender and goes all the way back to his teenage and preteen years. At no point can Tony manage to make good, with misfortune or poor judgment repeatedly wrecking his chances for happiness and stability while his ne’er-do-well friend Sandy Quade always gets off scot-free. It’s Sandy who surfaces as a voice in Tony’s head telling him to do reckless things like steal the ambulance. Tony’s soul-searching persistently touches on a subplot involving the disappearance of his younger sister, Angela, when they were kids, and hints that the Quade family might have been responsible. Galef’s prose is tight and his sense of humor is sharper than that of Tony, who has a penchant for stupid jokes, but a late-breaking revelation feels emotionally manipulative. It’s a mixed bag. (May)