The Generation That Got Stuck in Lockdown

Andrew Martin’s characters tend to be overeducated and underemployed. Theoretically engaged in some kind of creative practice, they’re more likely to produce aspirations (“he would read and write more, lose some weight, buy better clothes, find a nicer apartment …”) than anything resembling art. In lieu of a steady occupation, they fill their time with self-destruction, principally by ingesting illicit substances, pursuing ill-fated romances, or, whenever the opportunity presents itself, doing both at the same time. In Martin’s 2018 debut, Early Work, the relationship-ending affair between Ph.D. dropout Peter and fiction writer Leslie is lubricated, variously, by weed, tequila, whiskey, beer, and mushrooms. In “Cool for America,” the title story of his 2020 collection, an unnamed narrator flirts with his friend’s wife through a haze of booze and pain pills prescribed for his badly broken leg; later, the husband punches a beer glass into the narrator’s teeth.