HARD-WIRED
Andy Palinkas is a modern Don Quixote. He’s unattractive. He’s suspicious of others. He’s fixated on a girl he can’t win. He embarrasses himself at sports. Plus, as Andy observes, “Having a younger brother who can beat you at anything: That has got to be the worst thing in the world.” As he grows up in State City, Iowa, in the mid-1960s, Andy copes with his pathological self-loathing by imagining himself as a hero. He creates alternative realities in which he’s powerful, accomplished, brave—and sometimes vengeful. Andy also remarks on the history that’s being made— the assassination of President Kennedy, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war—and begins to develop a political conscience, as well as a strong sense of justice.
To his amazement, by his senior year at State City High, Andy has become one of the cool kids. Then, he faces a decision that might cost him the status and admiration he’s earned. Joseph Dobrian’s novel, Hard-Wired (Rex Imperator, 373 pps., trade paperback, $16.95, ISBN 978-0-9835572-5-8), in bookstores and available on line starting September 13, 2016, will resonate with any adult who remembers the humiliations, the painful humor, and the occasional victories of adolescence.
“This book is a prequel to my 2014 novel, Ambitions, in a way,” Dobrian explains. “The character who narrates Ambitions is a man in his 60s. Hard-Wired will visit that same man as a teenager. You’ll discover how he got to be the kind of adult he became. In Ambitions, Andy narrates the story of a neighbor family, in the 2000s. In Hard-Wired, he tells his own story, looking back and commenting on his teenage years.”
The title of the book comes from Andy’s belief that he’s psychologically hard-wired to act as he does, and that therefore it’s possible that he never had any control over the outcome of his life. His quest, though, throughout the book, is to fight his way out of childhood and become the master of his own fate—completely responsible for his own actions. He warns his readers, “I’m sure there are innocent victims, people who got totally messed up by other people, or by circumstances beyond their control. I’m not one of those. That’s all I’m saying.”
Hard-Wired is Joseph Dobrian’s third novel. He’s also the author of Ambitions, the satirical Willie Wilden, and a collection of essays, Seldom Right But Never In Doubt.
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR HARD-WIRED
“Joseph Dobrian writes enviably believable dialogue. I found this story indescribably sad—except for the ending, which is surprisingly not sad. Hard-Wired perfectly captures the utter self-centered misery of high school—which I’m not sure is forgivable. I might compare Joseph Dobrian’s writing with that of Booth Tarkington—but more intense, more brooding.”
— Holly Carver, former director of University of Iowa Press
“Hard-Wired features strong characters and excellent writing, in the conversational style that Joseph Dobrian does so well, with a staccato-like tension, especially as the climactic events accumulate. It’s a discomfiting story, and entirely believable.”
— Katherine Perkins, author of Foul Is Fair
“Hard-Wired gives us a compelling and relatable story about coming of age in the mid-1960s. It lets us into the main character’s mind and shows us how he develops his own set of values, moral principles, and political views. It’s surprisingly political and philosophical in its message, but it conveys that message by telling a strong story instead of preaching.”
— Jim Lesczynski, author of The Walton Street Tycoons
