Code for Failure

What are life experiences for if not writing novels? Based on his experience of getting unceremoniously kicked out of college and going to work as a gas station attendant in Oregon, one of two states where pumping your own gas is illegal, Ryan W. Bradley’s debut novel, Code for Failure is a story of excess at its most self-destructive.

Excessive drugs, sex, and failure is not the usual recipe for redemption, but Bradley’s narrator is hell-bent on living life his way, even if it takes a Shiva-like path of destruction to do it.

“Imbued with the vast free-floating sadness and cosmic potential of the American Northwest, this novel charts a zigzag path for its hero from slacker nihilism to some kind of nascent maturity, leaving a trail of naked bodies and spilled gasoline all the way.” –Paul Di Filippo, author of Roadside Bodhisattva and Fractal Paisleys