The Disappointment

A married couple struggles to connect while on vacation in Broker’s offbeat and emotive debut. Jack, a lapsed playwright, hopes that a trip to the Oregon coast will help lift the spirits of his husband, Randy, whose mother recently died. After arriving at their friends’ house, Jack distracts himself by sexting with strangers and has unusual encounters with the locals. One, a method actor, tells a sob story but breaks character when Jack shares why he stopped writing plays. When the couple get invited to a party hosted by one of Jack’s sexting partners, their strained relationship is put to the test. While the absurdist elements, including an insistent baggage clerk doggedly attempting to return luggage the couple never lost and a teenager who convinces Randy that asking questions into a tape recorder will allow him to hear his mother’s voice in the static of the playback, don’t add up to much, Broker packs a wallop in his depiction of Jack’s hamfisted attempts to fix things, and he threads clever dialogue throughout, as when Jack describes sexting with strangers to cope with Randy’s gloom as a habit that could “bore boredom.” Readers will expect good things from Broker to come. Agent: Kent Wolf, Neon Literary. (Mar.)