At what point do we give up on our dreams? Not everyone ends up fulfilling their life’s aspirations, and at some point we simply need to let things go. Or at the very least, change the rules of the game. In Alex Higley’s True Failure, we’re introduced to a medley of characters on the cusp of striking out.
The novel opens with Ben losing his job. Instead of telling his wife, Tara, about his layoff, he concocts a plan with his friend, Nguyen, to appear on the show Big Shot. The fictional reality show is seemingly analogous to Shark Tank where contestants pitch business ideas and products to seek investment from the big shots. The only problem for Ben? He doesn’t have a product, a business, or even an idea.
Tara meanwhile continues running her in-home daycare out of their Chicago-area home, but what she really wants is a baby, her own. Though she’s working, the childcare she provides is not really a career or a job that pays enough to maintain their lifestyle, and her true passion is painting.
The narrative perspective switches between Ben and Tara until about midway when we’re introduced to Marcy, a producer and casting agent for Big Shot. She’s been wildly successful at choosing contestants for the show, not in the sense of choosing successful business people, but in choosing entertaining characters. Her problem is she came to Hollywood to make movies, not silly reality TV series, and for some reason, she can’t simply quit her job.
Marcy has two assistants, Callie and Brent, who also have several chapters written from their perspective. Like Marcy, and probably every intern in Hollywood, they also aspire to success in the film industry. Central to this novel is the idea of the hopes and dreams industrial complex, whether that’s motherhood, or movie making, or simply being the star of a reality show, and how often people fail at achieving those goals.
The novel is the marriage of two stories bound together by the reality show. It starts out focused on Ben and Tara’s marriage and their domestic life. At first it seems like the central conflict will revolve around Ben and his relationship to being married, having children and unemployment. Nguyen and Ben’s friendship at times feels like it strains the intimacy between Ben and Tara, and even the foundation for examining male friendships. But if there is tension there, it disappears in the latter half of the novel. What remains is how Ben and Tara evolve through the lens of the reality show.
The other narrative develops the conflicts surrounding the production team of Big Shot – Marcy, Callie, and Brent. There’s a lot happening here that we aren’t really privy to in this novel. Callie and Brent are in competition with each other to impress Marcy. But rather than peering through a window, we’re looking through a keyhole. We only see little bits of this struggle. Their story attempts to balance the pace of the novel and counteract Ben’s decline from ordinary, normal guy into a weird obsessive, hyperfocused on becoming a contestant on the show. Their side quests feel like something of a distraction for the broader narrative.
Marcy too, has a little subplot all her own. Thirty years earlier, her parents were murdered. She spends the novel trying to avoid the media coverage. Ultimately, nobody really cares anymore, and the entire thing speaks to her own insecurities.
The two sets of characters are entirely insular until the production of the show brings them together. But they are also linked by their failures, and their lack of success.
Despite the distractions, Ben is the center of this novel, and the whole of the book moves forward because of him. Many of his problems are his own making. He sees the world in black and white: “Either continue to endure your day job quietly and perform to a level that will result in not losing that job, or attempt to get on a nationally televised reality show that is giving away millions of dollars. A middle way did not occur to Ben.” Yet, despite researching and preparing for the Big Shot auditions, he only opens the actual application for the show after wasting several weeks watching old episodes at the public library.
Ultimately Ben’s product, the thing he plans to sell, is an abstract idea about reinventing the Big Shot television show format as a local investment in community building. The idea itself doesn’t seem entirely worked out, but maybe that’s not important, the equivalent of trying to understand how faster-than-light travel works in a science fiction novel. What is important is that the idea is about nothing.
The characters in True Failure are all attempting to find meaning and purpose in a world where nothing really matters anymore. The framework of a reality show encapsulates this desire. Even the projects that do end up funded by the big shots aren’t really hashed out on screen, but the deals are signed off camera. Every contestant, even Ben, eventually ends up talking to a therapist to confirm they are of sound mind. In that respect, the entire concept of the show is fabricated.
We see this too in Marcy, who’s obsession with the past murder of her parents ultimately doesn’t matter either because nobody cares. It’s merely some past event that torments her, but means nothing to everyone else.
Ben’s desire to be featured on the show was never about conventional success. He’s mostly nonplussed when it comes to the financial well-being of his family, a problem remedied ultimately with freelance work. It’s not about wealth or even fame, but simply accomplishing a goal, no matter how trivial.
True Failure meanders while trying to find its way. Like Ben, like Tara, the narrative is looking for its purpose. When Higley finds it, the novel begins moving more quickly, right about the time Ben thinks to download the basic audition requirements. When the pacing begins to pick up, we suddenly feel like everyone is moving forward, even if we aren’t sure where we’re going. Brent and Callie at times seem superfluous, more like set dressing to help move the story along, but they do reinforce the repetition of the pattern.
Ultimately for Ben, he realizes the secret to success is simply not failing. He adapts, changes, moves the goalposts, and so while he may never win, he’ll also never lose. There’s no reason to give up on dreams, only to change them.
In True Failure, Alex Higley examines the relationship between who we want to be and who we end up becoming. The path is not always a straight line, and the destination may not be where we expected. The journey is the point.
FICTION
TRUE FAILURE
By Alex Higley
Coffee House Press
Published February 25, 2025
