REBOOT

A former child actor sees possibilities for reinvention in a media landscape dominated by recycled intellectual property.

David Crader experienced a measure of success as an actor when, as a teen, he co-starred on Rev Beach, a supernatural-tinged TV drama that, despite a lack of critical appreciation, attracted a cult audience. Now approaching middle age, David has struggled with alcoholism in the intervening years and is the twice-divorced father of a young son, Henry. Adrift and unhappy, he gets by doing voiceover work for video games and half-heartedly running a bar. When Rev Beach unexpectedly becomes a hot commodity again—it was a fluke streaming sensation during the pandemic lockdown—David receives an offer from his old co-star (and first ex-wife), Grace Travis, to reboot the series, provided he can convince Rev Beach lead actor and current superstar Shayne Glade to participate. While there’s plenty of plot (the story also concerns another Rev Beach actor’s political career, various natural disasters, the machinations of radicalized Internet subcultures, and David’s fraught family drama), the narrative also overflows with witty and incisive ideas. The theme of rebooting animates every thread—characters strive to reinvent themselves, start new families and careers, and rewrite their histories while an all-consuming media vortex endlessly recycles and recombines content (Shayne stars in “the stage musical adaptation of David Cronenberg’s film adaptation of Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis”). Taylor’s prose is unfailingly engaging as David’s internal monologue cycles through sophisticated pop cultural analysis, rueful self-reflection, and sundry conspiracy theories (Hollow Earthers and lizard people get an airing), and there is true poignancy in David’s interactions with his child and in his fumbling attempts at redemption. Taylor’s fluency, intellectual nimbleness, and playful sense of humor call to mind the work of David Foster Wallace; the reader can easily imagine David Crader’s video game adaptation of Infinite Jest.

An affecting character study and excoriating indictment of the way we live now.