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Code for Failure

by Ryan W. Bradley (Goodreads Author)

4.0 of 5 stars 4.00 · rating details · 30 ratings · 17 reviews

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 n...more

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Published March 27th 2012 by Black Coffee Press

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Aug 09, 2012 Kendall rated it 5 of 5 stars

Ryan Bradley wants you to wonder what is fact and what is fiction in "Code For Failure", which is based on his experiences as a gas station attendant, but you want to believe everything that has happened in this terrific novel. It's a fast read, definitely for the internet generation, yet incredibly hard to put down. It almost makes you feel a little regret, that you might not have lived as hard or as impetuously as the main character. Through it all, you want him to find that one person who isn...more

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May 25, 2012 Meg Tuite rated it 5 of 5 stars

Ryan W. Bradley’s novel “Code For Failure,” is a potent, gutter-blast of existence with all its hellish memories of those first post-college jobs. The novel is straightforward. Short sentences and dialogue that belt these characters alive.

“I’m the guy who pumps your gas.
Oregon is one of only two states where it’s illegal to pump your own gas. The other is New Jersey. Go figure. Great company for us.”

This sets the tone for the novel. It is brilliantly packed in with pathos, sex and that feeling t...more

3 likes · like · see review

Mar 27, 2012 Laura added it

Code for Failure is kind of a slight book, but it is really full of good stuff. I read and reviewed Ryan's short story collection Prize Winners last year, which struck me as the work of a very capable writer, and so I was excited when Lori asked me to be on the tour for this book. The novel is a semi-autobiographical portrait of a year in the life of a college dropout/gas station employee. The narrator is sort of typically apathetic, surprisingly popular with the ladies (do women really hit on g...more

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Feb 15, 2012 Allison rated it 4 of 5 stars

As Ryan says in his acknowledgments, this book is "a story about a screw-up gas station attendant written by a former screw-up gas station attendant." The book is a quick read, broken into short sections that will keep you saying "Just one more chapter, just one more" before you can attempt to put it down. It's a novel, but most pieces could stand alone as short stories; I felt like I was reading a collection that just happened to come together into a story arc at the end. Parts are crass, parts...more

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May 22, 2012 Roberta rated it 2 of 5 stars

Code Confusion

I wanted to like Bradley’s first novel, a GoodReads First Read, because of his poetry background, and because of the promise of the title. Subtitled “A Gas Station Novel,” as though there might be a series in the works, a little too much is given away too soon. The protagonist of this (semi-autobiographical) work is unnamed, but, we’re told repeatedly, too smart for his job pumping gas in Oregon—he ended up where he was because he got kicked out of college for excessive raucousness...more Code Confusion

I wanted to like Bradley’s first novel, a GoodReads First Read, because of his poetry background, and because of the promise of the title. Subtitled “A Gas Station Novel,” as though there might be a series in the works, a little too much is given away too soon. The protagonist of this (semi-autobiographical) work is unnamed, but, we’re told repeatedly, too smart for his job pumping gas in Oregon—he ended up where he was because he got kicked out of college for excessive raucousness caused by drinking too seriously. The text is a meditation on whether he’ll ever get out of the slump he’s in, knee-deep in elbow grease, as it were.

The cover and twentysomething identity crisis would imply that this could be a YA novel, but the sexcapades are too explicit for that, making one wonder what the market is (twentysomething males, one supposes). The page-to-two page vignettes in which the novel is structured give a choppy effect, leaving the reader to wonder if a story will unfold at all: this is definitely written for the Internet generation, people with short attention spans more accustomed to blog posts and emails than anything else. A story does emerge, with some regular characters and a dose of conflict (customers, bosses, changes in station identity and ownership), but it takes too long for a sense of story development to emerge for a reader to get a payout, that is, to get a sense of what all these anecdotes add up to. As interesting as the local color (mostly white trash) is, it is too easy in the first half of the book to wonder what the author’s intent is, if this is anything more than slice-of-life postcards. The book does feel like a series of open mic excerpts slapped together, unfortunately, and it would have helped if the vignettes were lengthened and consolidated a bit to make the pacing less rapid-fire and more memorable. Too much time is spent chronicling the hero’s libido, as though to underline his aimlessness and manliness: in brief, women can’t keep their hands off him, and pretty soon he supplements pumping crude with, well, pumping crude: having sex for money with the soccer moms and stifled wives of Middle-of-Nowhere, Ore.

This state of affairs persists for the majority of the book, while our lead continues to be offered more responsibility at the station, which comes to add car-wash and oil-change facilities to the property—responsibilities that he bristles at, having larger, but inchoate, ambitions. Peppered in are some relationships, albeit short-sighted ones: a fling with the bosses’ daughter, making readers wonder about the hero’s penchant for self-sabotage by potentially getting caught messing where he eats, and another semi-serious shacking up, for love and not for money, with a woman he met at a bar (who is so smitten that she later becomes a quasi-stalker). One doesn’t know what is more unbelievable: that our narrator gets so much action or that someone with such good looks (that we aren’t told much about) couldn’t get any other kind of job elsewhere—not even washing dishes, we’re told, from the fallen grace of being expelled from academia for drunkenness. This casting out of Eden isn’t really explored so much, though we are told repeatedly of how bruised it’s made our protagonists’ psyche, while also being told that he probably didn’t care for college anyway. So though he lets fly lamentations about his current state, he can’t conjure an alternative, and sublimates his anxieties into alcohol and bagging women. While this may sound stereotypical and pat, it actually is an accurate summation of the bulk of the book’s preoccupations.

Virility is our narrator’s main concern, lacking focus and fulfillment elsewhere in his life. The free-form angst is hard to sympathize with because we are told of his potential, but don’t see him, say, working on a manuscript in his studio (which, for all his crying poverty, it seems unrealistic that he has the funds, prior to prostitution, for a studio and for the copious amounts of alcohol he takes in). Our hero’s problem, a vague “wanting more,” is a lot of talk, without a lot of substance or even backstory. Our hero wants, without knowing what or even why he wants, leaving the project with a half-baked feel. We’re told working at a gas station is “code for failure,” but we’re not told what failure means to the protagonist. We’re told about a lot of feelings, but not really given more than a superficial psychological exploration of them, if that.

Also unbelievably, to wrap up the book nicely (though hurriedly), as fate would have it, a former high-school classmate he never had the guts to talk to, comes into the station and becomes the love of his life. And they (spoiler) literally ride off into the sunset, subsidized by our hero’s savings from the time he was a gigolo. The takeaway, if there is one, seems to reaffirm romantic notions that The Right Person will set you on your Path in life, so Just Relax and Let it Happen. This does seem to hint at a series in the works, because that’s where the real action is in books now, it seems.

There is material with potential here, but in what I can only understand as a rush to appeal to an ADD demographic, there is a lot of “telling,” not a lot of showing, a lot of chatter, not a lot of storytelling. A much better book would have come out of really getting deep into set & setting, really getting into describing the offbeat customers and the ambiance of the station, letting us see the sweat instead of telling us our main character is sweaty: in other words, resisting painting in broad strokes. A series of inter-related short stories, instead of bite-sized tableaux, would have been far more interesting. From an author with some literary chops and a few chapbooks under his belt, this foray into fiction is glaringly non-literary—and even if that was the intent, the execution could have been more vivid by far.

Also, unfortunately, I have to note the large number of proofing and typographical errors in my edition (sentences missing periods, comma errors, and so on). I really want to support small presses, but the errors were glaring and distracting.

In ten words or less: Plenty of sex, but not much else.
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Feb 23, 2012 Caleb Ross rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: ebooks, guilty-by-association

I've always had a nostalgic association with gas stations, so reading this book, taking in it's non-stop sex capades, hit me strangely. But associations aside, this book is quick, super fun, and quite intelligent. A great intro to Bradley's work.

2 likes · like · see review

Sep 25, 2012 Hosho rated it 5 of 5 stars

Bradley serves up a page-turner wherein a blue collar nihilism, punctuated by booze, broads, and the vagaries of a shit job schlepping gas, slowly gives way to a softer existentialism -- and even some hard-won redemption. Anyone who has ever been tossed out of school (or damn close to it) and who instinctually roots for the underdog will find plenty here to cheer for, and Bradley gives fine voice in short, punchy chapters. Had Bukowski pumped gas there might well have been similar yarns in a cha...more

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Nov 15, 2012 Jason Pettus rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: dark, character-heavy, hipster, contemporary, personal-favorite

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

I'm proud to count author Ryan Bradley, who's also the owner of Artistically Declined Press, as a friend of mine, which would make it an ethical conflict if I tried to pass off my review of his latest book, Code for Failure, as "objective;" I did however want to get a mention of it posted here online anywa...more

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Feb 19, 2012 Lori rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc-reviewers-copy, downloads, own-not-yet-read, indie-awesomeness

from author for review

Read 2/12/12
4.5 Stars - Highly Recommended to readers who don't mind getting a little grease under their nails
Pgs: 255 (eBook format)
Publisher: Black Coffee Press
Release date: March 27th, 2012

"Don't ever get comfortable here," ... "This place will steal your soul."

I'm about to admit something that you may end up holding against me. Although I bet you are guilty of the same exact thing, so just go ahead and hold that mirror up against yourself before you get too judgy... ok...more

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Mar 14, 2012 Benoit Lelievre rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a solid five stars. Rock solid, even. The reality of Ryan W. Bradley is the reality of thousand on young men in America and his nameless narrator deals with issues such as boredom (physical and existential), alienation, lonelines and confusion in such an earnest way, it's hard not to root for him. Half-way between Henry Rollins vignettes and slacker comedy, CODE FOR FAILURE is a unique novel. I could see myself reading it over and over again.

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Sep 30, 2012 Alex rated it 3 of 5 stars

I got sucked into this story after about 30 pages; it reminds me of "The Fuck Up" by Arthur Nersesian. This isn't high-end literature, but I don't think Ryan intended to write that...overall it was a good, solid read. I cranked it out in less than 4 hours, while at a park with my daughter. It was a pleasant Sat. afternoon and Ryan's book was part of it.

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Jun 10, 2012 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars

I once was offered to "run" a Subway sandwich location. I feel if I would have taken that job I would have ended up like much of Cal's story, but with much less sex-for-money situations going on. There is an anxiety with purposeful failure. Bradley captures the winks in a decline.

1 like · like · see review

Sep 20, 2012 Shannon Peil rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ryan W. Bradley has a way with dialogue, and with the internal monologue of an early 20s underachieving loser, which I have a soft spot and connection to.

I didn't believe anything that happened in this book, but maybe that's just what it's like to be really attractive.

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Mar 21, 2012 Ben rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ryan W. Bradley is the punk Seuss.

More - http://bentanzer.blogspot.com/2012/03...

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May 20, 2012 Ray Charbonneau rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: general-fiction

Entertaining memoir-like book, a little thin in the 'what's the meaning of it all' department, or it might rate higher.

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Apr 23, 2012 Matt Micheli rated it 4 of 5 stars

It’s a love story. Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. You’ll have to spend an hour-and-a-half to read it and find out. Read entire review/blog @ http://www.violentsleeper.com/blog/

1 like · like · see review

May 11, 2013 Caroline marked it as to-read

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Shelves: d-civil-coping-mechanisms, on-our-shelf

Apr 23, 2013 Civil Mechanisms rated it 5 of 5 stars

Mar 28, 2013 Heather marked it as to-read-do-not-own

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Jan 13, 2013 Chris Vola rated it 5 of 5 stars

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Shelves: to-buy-and-read, to-borrow

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About Ryan W. Bradley

Ryan W. Bradley has pumped gas, changed oil, painted houses, swept the floor of a mechanic's shop, worked on a construction crew in the Arctic Circle, fronted a punk band, and managed an independent children's bookstore. He now designs book covers. He received his MFA from Pacific University and his poetry and fiction has been published widely online and in print.

He is the author of three poetry c...more

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