Nothing Happens Until It Happens to You: A Novel Without Pay, Perks, or Privileges (Paperback)

Nothing Happens Until It Happens to You: A Novel Without Pay, Perks, or Privileges By T. M. Shine Cover Image

Nothing Happens Until It Happens to You: A Novel Without Pay, Perks, or Privileges (Paperback)

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Jeffrey Reiner is a middle manager’s dream.

Predictable, almost invisible, and lacking ambition, he’s held the same tedious job for eighteen years, typing up the calendar listings for a South Florida weekly. As the economy and the newspaper industry crashed around him, Jeffrey kept his head comfortably in the sand until he was terminated in the middle of his lunch hour. Suddenly Jeffrey is staring at a deadline of twenty-one weeks before his severance pay and unemployment benefits dry up and he has to figure out what to do next.

Plunged into the bizarre world of unemployment, Jeffrey’s attempts at networking lead him to his slacker neighbors, an unorthodox state facilitator, and a 1-800 mental health counselor. What’s even worse is now that he has no job to fill the daytime hours, he can’t ignore the fact that his family life is unraveling: his wife communicates almost solely through detailed daily honey-do lists; his mother seems determined to get herself kicked out of her assisted-living facility; his teenage daughter has no use for him and seems wiser to the ways of the world than he’ll ever be; and his son has taken up a disturbing form of pest control to help make ends meet. Even his dog finds a way to let him down.

With his job search going nowhere amid the wreckage of the American economy, Jeffrey has no choice but to push beyond his comfort zone. He takes on a string of ridiculous odd jobs for a guy known as “enterprising dude” that include dressing up as the Statue of Liberty and breeding fish in a tub of mud. But as Jeffrey stumbles from one comic catastrophe to another, he realizes that in opening up to the world, he no longer wants to go back to his safe, sheltered corner. Full of whimsy, wry humor, and surprising insight,

Nothing Happens Until It Happens to You is a weird, wonderful journey of self-discovery that proves there’s life after the pink slip after all.
T.M. SHINE is an award-winning journalist and author based in South Florida who has written on topics ranging from spending a week in fourth grade at the age of thirty-two to hunting down an elusive Lizard Man in the backwoods of South Carolina. A regular contributor to The Washington Post Magazine, his work has also appeared in numerous publications and been featured on National Public Radio’s This American Life.

Product Details ISBN: 9780307589866
ISBN-10: 0307589862
Publisher: Crown
Publication Date: April 5th, 2011
Pages: 304
Language: English
"There’s nothing amusing about getting laid off—except when it’s a story told by the brilliant Terry Shine, one of the funniest writers I know."
—Dave Barry

“Unpredictable and with deprecating humor, journalist T.M. Shine’s debut will appeal to anyone affected by the current economic crises.”
Booklist
 
"Florida journalist Shine turns on his profession with this acidly funny...first novel about a newspaper refugee who takes unemployment harder than most."
Kirkus Reviews

“T.M. Shine has more fun with a day than most any other writer can imagine in a year. He turns clock-watching into a bright, comic thrill-ride.”
—Bill Zehme, contributing editor, Esquire magazine and author Lost In the Funhouse

“Humor and profundity are not mutually exclusive, and life can be, and mostly is, serious and funny simultaneously. It’s not always easy to capture that in words, but when T.M. Shine manages to do so, it’s a sign of a master at work.” 
—Tom Shroder, former editor of Washington Post Magazine