Publishers Weekly Review of The GoodLife
An ordinary middle-aged New Jersey man, heavily in debt and sick of merely dreaming of wealth,
cooks up a doomed kidnapping plot in Scribner's provocative first novel, an astute and detailed
comment on the American Dream's criminal edge....Theo, a chronic screwup, has moved his wife,
Colleen, and their whip-smart, anorexic teen daughter, Tiffany, back into the family home with his
dad, Malcolm, a retired cop dying from emphysema, and saintly mom....Malcolm's stubborn love
for his arrogant, incompetent son is heartbreaking. Theo and Colleen ring true in their myopic
delusions of grandeur, as Scribner perceptively skewers their self-deception, but his talents are most
potently displayed in the sensitive portrayals of auxiliary characters like the lovable, wisecracking
Tiffany and her conscientious grandpa Malcolm