This head-spinning debut novel of political, religious, and philosophical inquiry and parody centers on “Dizzy” L’Amour, a bar-owner who styles himself as an old-school hardboiled detective and is prone to declarations like “Dizzy’s the name. Drinking’s the game” and “After awhile, we all become metaphors for some damn thing.” After a car accident scars his wife, Erica, and leads to their estrangement, Dizzy embarks on a wild search for meaning and forgiveness, a story he calls a “a shrink’s wet dream,” as Wheeler springs continual surprises, with little clear sense of linear order, and playful, often jolting, scenes and colloquies of conspiracy-theorizing (often about the nature of conspiracy theories themselves), the meaning of the Gospels (the disciples of Christ might be immortal after drinking from the Holy Grail at the last supper) and the gruesomeness of war, death, and contemporary American life.

With a seldom-sober narrator inveighing against “QAnon twaddle over who was really to blame for the pandemic,” Wheeler’s novel is more an audacious spree than a conventionally plotted story, crafted to challenge and unsettle readers, building to surprises like Dizzy’s relationship with three immortal beings. There is a structure, though, as each of six parts opens with a (fictionalized) quotation from “Q” of QAnon and then usually depicts Panama-hatted Dizzy engaging in circular dialogues about the world’s problems (“Use the President Trump [a boat] to blow up President Trump”) and headier concerns, like the origins of the persistent American belief that nefarious forces secretly control everything.

In the rare moments where the characters take action, Wheeler leaves it to readers to make sense of their motivations and what’s real and not. The novel’s pointedly not for everyone, and even some characters find it all a little much, with one noting “I like you, Diz, but you’re too cerebral for me.” But there’s gems and provocative declarations dotted throughout, and readers who can get on Dizzy’s wavelength will feel like part of the conversation.

Takeaway: Playful, provocative novel of conspiracy and immortality in the Qanon era.

Comparable Titles: Brenda Lozano’s Loop, Evan Eisenberg’s The Trumpiad.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: B