Reviewed by Jaxiel Tavarez
Alex Higley’s True Failure, an introspective work of postmodernist literary fiction, follows three central characters—Ben, Tara, and Marcy—each navigating disappointment, self-deception, and the quiet anxieties of not becoming the person they imagined. Set in contemporary Chicago, arguably the best city in the United States, True Failure balances emotional depth with dry wit, portraying its characters with careful tenderness that does not manage to excuse their choices but does allow us to understand them.
The novel centers around Ben, a recently laid-off accountant who hides his unemployment from his wife and becomes fixated on auditioning for Big Shot, a fictionalized version of Shark Tank. Through Ben, True Failure asks: how much of our identity is shaped by the fear of failure? How do societal expectations to constantly perform and succeed shape our sense of worth? Ben’s story raises the uncomfortable question of whether we’re truly chasing dreams—or simply seeking validation in a system that thrives on such desperation—while exposing the quiet, sometimes absurd lengths we’ll go to feel seen.
True Failure also gives voice to Tara, Ben’s wife, who runs a daycare out of their home. Through her, Higley reflects on the complicated relationship between caregiving and personal fulfillment. Tara’s life raises another pressing question: how does capitalism affect the emotional labor that often goes unnoticed in our society? As she crafts elaborate, culturally diverse curricula for her young charges, Tara wrestles with her own unmet aspirations and a deep sense of displacement. Tara’s story asks us to consider what our society values—and how deeply those values affect our personal definitions or conceptions of meaning and success.
Midway through the novel, the narrative introduces Marcy, a casting agent and producer who has drifted far from her initial passion for filmmaking. Now responsible for shaping emotional spectacle on shows like Big Shot, Marcy embodies another of the novel’s core questions: how does capitalism commodify our most vulnerable emotions—grief, joy, fear—for mass entertainment? Her internal reckoning with lost ideals and moral compromises challenges readers to consider the costs of a life shaped by systems that reward performance over authenticity.
Alongside these central characters, Higley includes the points of view of Brent and Callie, two of Marcy’s interns. Their minor roles add to Marcy’s storyline as they compete for favor and visibility, subtly illustrating how the desire to succeed—even in low-stakes, underpaid positions—can lead to rivalry, posturing, and self-betrayal. Brent and Callie offer a lens into how early-career ambitions are shaped and distorted by the promise of upward mobility, adding texture to the novel’s examination of capitalism’s quiet pressures. They offer a glimpse into a young hunger for success that often times blinds our genuine desires.
Through humor, absurdity, and the backdrop of a reality show, True Failure builds a world that feels both satirical and deeply human. While some character choices veer into the absurd, the novel simultaneously allows us to understand where the characters are coming from and why they believe what they are doing is the best. Higley compels us to reflect not only on our goals and failures but on the self-deceptions we inherit from society.
If you’re the kind of reader who loves to be pulled into a story by its characters—who finds joy in following flawed, absurd, but hopeful people through their, oddly unconventional paths—then True Failure might just be a success. By following Ben, Tara and Marcy in their journeys, which are in times absurd but also oddly relatable True Failure offers a kind of escapism. Yet, the world these characters inhabit is never far removed from our own. Their realities are shaped by the same limitations, expectations, and economic pressures that many readers will recognize.
For anyone who’s ever had a dream, or rooted for someone else’s, this novel offers questions that linger. How do we define success in our own lives? Where and who do we go to in order to feel successful? How do we react when we feel like failures? It’s a story less about reaching the destination of success and more about questioning what is around us and how we value it. It asks us as people, in a society that can’t fully see us, what is true failure?