The Cyclone Release

A tech writer in the Silicon Valley begins a demanding new job and struggles to move past the recent death of his wife in Overby's novel. Brendon Meagher loses his wife, Sadie, in a car accident, a sudden and tragic catastrophe for which no one was held legally culpable. In the aftermath of his loss, he finds himself "descending into a long malaise," drifting aimlessly from day to day without energy or purpose in state of existential ennui deftly limned by the author. A technical writer by trade, Meagher takes a year's sabbatical from working--he returns to the fray after landing a job with Janela Software, an "all-star of the Internet boom," which is soon to launch a major new product and stage an IPO. The financial potential of that IPO is "astronomical"--the reward for Brendon could be millions of dollars. However, the race to release its new flagship product (codenamed Cyclone) is an unforgiving one, and Brendon is forced to confront the "ominous reality of his own workload." Unable to complete his tasks alone, he is authorized to hire another writer, Maureen "Mo" Gramercy ("she preferred the shortened, gender-ambivalent version of her name"). They begin a romance, but their connection is threatened when Brendon learns that Mo was the other driver in Sadie's car accident, an unlikely turn of events that feels like a literary contrivance, more clever than dramatically credible. Such moments of implausibility and narrative strain are the chief flaws in the author's otherwise thoughtful emotional drama. Scene after scene depicts lengthy technical discussions in the workplace; while Overby provides an impressively realistic peek into the pressurized environment of a tech startup, readers who don't inhabit that world will grow tired of its "crazy-making jargon," even as the author lampoons it. Still, the narrative remains a fascinating portrait of Silicon Valley and its inhabitants. A ruminative consideration of life on the cutting-edge of tech commerce.

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