Erik Eckel

Matt Bucher is a creative novelist unafraid to shun convention. The Summer Layoff—a sequel to The Belan Deck although the new book can be read independently—tracks a timely topic: the price we pay pursuing careers. And like The Belan Deck, The Summer Layoff, read in the right mindset, proves unexpectedly moving.

The Austin, Texas, resident’s novels are impactful because they’re honest and, occasionally, abrupt. There’s an authenticity to Bucher’s prose that’s unflattened by saccharine efforts to achieve mass market appeal. That’s not to say The Summer Layoff isn’t relevant to everyone, though. Quite the opposite.

Careers consume decades of most all our lives. John Updike famously wrote in his Pulitzer Prize-winning Rabbit at Rest novel “work, that’s the real way that people die.”

Our commitments to commuting, working, monitoring and responding to emails and text messages, attending Zoom sessions and fulfilling similar professional responsibilities steal the most productive years of our lives. It’s no wonder retirement is such a carrot and motivation; people feel an innate longing to spend time performing the activities and tasks they actually find pleasurable and fulfilling.

I sensed this feeling of loss some 20 years ago. Subsequently, following a vacation to Florida in which I relaxed riding hundreds of Rails to Trails miles, I wrote a short story describing one man’s decision to drop out of corporate life altogether to enable more time for riding and reading. Titled Live Bait: Life on the Pinellas Trail, you can read that story free or as collected within a story collection.

The Summer Layoff covers similar territory. Seemingly sprinkled with random non sequiturs, if you pay attention you’ll find there’s purpose behind the method. We are all subject to distraction and our very work devices and technologies—smartphones and laptops, PowerPoint decks and Zoom sessions—only contribute to the problem we’ve all somehow come to accept.

Except The Summer Layoff’s protagonist chooses not to, at least for one summer. Laid off from his job, the character’s quick calculations confirm severance, subsidized COBRA benefits and unemployment payments mean he can take a season off without significant financial ramifications. And, after thirty years of working, taking a season for oneself has it benefits.

As Bucher notes, “a bucket list almost always features travel and excitement and adventure, but what this time here presupposes is: what if you don’t need to go anywhere or do anything to live out your dreams. Go for a walk, go to bed early, meditate on your fortunate ability to live a life that is the envy of many others.”

And that’s just what the protagonist does. At least for 99 days one summer.

The novel collects numerous intriguing statements, such as “there are no days of my working life in which I lived as fully as I have spent whole days in bed with a book” and “in the age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.”

The Summer Layoff is worth your time. So do yourself a favor. Don’t wait until you’re laid off or retire to give it a read.